


I make up things that I would never say (I say them very quietly)

by KidsToday



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Dreams, F/F, F/M, Karolina is sad and gay, Suicidal Thoughts, canon compliant (somewhat but also not really I kinda do what I want live with it), deanoru - Freeform, if you came here to see happy and established deanoru ... i'm sorry, karolina needs a hug, karolina: the queen of just being extra in general, kind of, literally that's all this is, me: the queen of extra af long titles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-06-20 04:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15526362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KidsToday/pseuds/KidsToday
Summary: "She thinks, sometimes at night when the windows are open and her feet are very cold under the blanket, when her parents are asleep across the hall or maybe not, she thinks how she would die for Nico if she had to."Karolina keeps having bad dreams and bad days and through it all, always, there is the thing with Nico - how she loves her, even if it hurts to admit.(Karolina is a baby gay, Nico is cool and their parents are still murderers. No wonder she has trouble sleeping.)





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> i wasn't about to post this before I finished part two too but someone on tumblr said I should (you know who you are) and also I wanted to. I crave validation.  
> Hit me with those comments (pls)
> 
> (also tell me if ao3 fucks the formatting up again pls tell me it always looks normal on my laptop:((

She thinks, sometimes at night when the windows are open and her feet are very cold under the blanket, when her parents are asleep across the hall or maybe not, she thinks how she would die for Nico if she had to.

There are three types of dreams she has in black and white.  
They always end with someone holding a gun and sometimes she dies in a puddle of her own blood and sometimes in Nico’s arms and sometimes she survives and then she get’s to keep the bullet and she wears it on a chain around her neck.

sometimes she says these things:

1\. “I am sorry.“

2\. “Don’t forget me.“ 

and

3\. “Please kiss me.“

 

She only ever dreams in color when she dreams of them kissing and she never dreams of them kissing.

 

()()()()

 

Two things make Karolina’s stomach feel like someone punched her hard.

The first is Chase kissing her and touching her and looking at her with that hopeful, lovesick look on his face and she likes Chase, she really does, but she’d like him a lot more if he’d stop thinking he’s in love with her.  
She knows he is not because she knows that a boy like Chase Stein could never be in love with a girl like Karolina Dean, she would never be enough for him in the ways that count.  
They may both be a little broken but they are pieces from different puzzles and she thinks deep down he knows this.

His hands are rough even when his eyes are soft but she can’t see the beauty in this.  
(She sees how Gert looks at him and knows that she would never be able to look at Chase like that, to understand him like that.  
She thinks Gert and her are very similar in the saddest ways: they both want things they think they can never have.)

The second thing is when she forgets to knock on a door that’s open and sees Nico on Alex’s lap with her lips on his and his hands on her hips and when she sees Alex in the limo with his arm around her and when Nico sits so close to him they are always somehow touching.

Sometimes these truths make it hard for Karolina to breathe, her chest gets tight and painful.  
She closes her eyes then, imagines a truck crashing into their car, imagines pushing Nico out of the way so Karolina would be in the impact zone, how her heart would stop beating but Nico would hold her hand.  
A fair deal, Karolina thinks.  
A good way to go.

They never have that accident and Chase smiles at her with all his teeth and keeps looking at her lips while she drinks glass after glass of too expensive champagne.

 

()()()()

 

(She keeps thinking of how she would die for Nico if only Nico would give her the chance.)

 

()()()()

 

There are other girls that catch her eye, that make her blush and warm. This is how she knows this is a real thing, not just a Nico thing.

One of these other girls kisses her in an upstairs bedroom at a party but afterwards Karolina’s lips still taste like copper, not coal like after Chase kissed her, more like she bit her tongue, like blood is filling her mouth.  
She thinks maybe nice things just don’t happen in upstairs bedrooms at parties and maybe nice things just don’t happen to her in general. 

She promises herself she won’t go to another party and she cries on the way home because she misses Nico so much, even though she is not hers to miss.

 

That night in bed she hugs her pillow and imagines it is her friend, but it does not smell right and it does not feel right and it is only a sad comfort.

She dreams of fires then, and of carrying Nico out before the building collapses down on her, and she takes her last breath with the ghost of Nico’s weight still in her arms.  
It feels a little like flying, these pieces of debris crushing her lungs while she knows that Nico is outside and safe, and Karolina knows what flying feels like, so she thinks this must be the right thing: her offering herself up so the other one survives.  
She wonders: if she’d take her bracelet off now, would she look beautiful?  
Would she become one with the flames and would they carry her into the sky, where she belongs?  
Maybe Nico would be jealous of the fire, for getting to take her completely, all of her skin and hair and blood and bones.

In this dream Karolina says: “Don’t worry, my heart is still yours.“ but Nico never hears her, she is already smoke and smoke and smoke and smoke.

 

()()()()

 

Karolina knows she is weaker than the others because the others don’t stop being able to concentrate in school and the others don’t need to break down in someones arms and the others don’t cry themselves to sleep more often than not and the others probably don’t feel like only half of a whole, they probably don’t dream of dying too many nights. 

(Yes, sometimes she survives and then she gets to keep the bullet but sometimes the bullet crumbles in her fist and sometimes she survives and Nico and Alex still kiss and sometimes she survives but no one cares and they all look at her accusingly, like she didn’t play her part right, so she dies more and more often, night after night and it’s okay.)

She thinks, realistically, Chase and Gert and Molly and Nico all have it worse than her, maybe Alex too but she knows Alex the least and she feels that maybe a lot of his problems are his own mistakes.

She can’t fault him for that, he is still her friend even though he reminds her of everything she can’t be and everything she can’t have.

But Chase has his dad and his mom’s affair and Gert has her dinosaur and her feelings for Chase, her anxiety, and Molly her strength and her dead parents and Nico… Nico has a dead sister and a mom full of secrets and a cheating dad and the Staff of One.  
What Karolina has is not more than they do, her mom is not the only one murdering kids and at least she still somehow has her dad, at least parts of him, and she may be glowing but she is not the only one with powers and she may be in love with her best friend but so is Gert and she seems to be functioning just fine.

And still, Karolina thinks that none of the others are overwhelmed like her: she is very sad and very tired a lot of the time.

Her mom watches her at the dinner table with concerned eyes, or maybe they are suspicious.  
A few months ago Karolina would have maybe gone to her with her problems but now all her secrets are heavy weights upon her chest and somehow the fact that she likes girls is the heaviest of them all.

Her dad knocks on her door and asks if she wants to hike with him and every time she gives a halfhearted excuse his eyes dim a little and his brows furrow.  
She tries very hard to be as inconspicuous as she can be, but her heart hurts often and deeply and she still can’t look her parents in the eyes.

They sit her down for a talk on a Wednesday after school, which she had seen coming since they had been very awkward around her that morning, but she is still surprised that her mother took the time, that her dad is looking at her all serious, his back straight.

“You’ve seemed so different.“  
they say, and  
“We are worried.“  
and  
“Has something happened? You can talk to us. Did someone hurt you.“

The last one almost makes her laugh: she thinks about the boys from the lacrosse team at the party and what she can’t remember, Chase telling her she didn’t have to worry, how that doesn’t make it better, she thinks about Nico kissing Alex and Chase kissing her and Gert throwing her dirty looks and she thinks about her mom, making her believe in lies for her whole life, murdering kids as old as Karolina behind her back, tucking Karolina’s hair back with the same hands that have led people to their deaths.  
She thinks of her dad who is sometimes too naive and too good and who will do anything if her mom asks him to. She is so afraid her mom will ask him.

What she says is: 

“I’m fine. School is stressing me out. I just had a fight with a friend. A girl I know got attacked at a party. It’s sad. I’m just being a teenager, dad. I just let myself go, mom. I’m gonna be better now.“

She can see in their eyes and their smiles that they don’t believe her and she wonders if they can see the same in hers.

 

()()()()

 

Timely becomes their unspoken hangout. 

They spend hours there planning and plotting and looking for a glimmer of hope, for some explanation, for a sign that their parents have their reasons for doing what they’re doing, that that reason is good enough to excuse killing people.  
They find none. They also don’t make any plans, all their plots have holes.

What they do do instead is homework and getting to know each other again.  
They have all grown so much over the last two years and sometimes Karolina feels like she is meeting strangers and sometimes it feels like no time has passed.  
She learns to love them all anew, she had forgotten what having friends felt like, what caring about someone for the most innocent reasons felt like, how you just know when you have a connection to someone.

She feels like that with all of them, but not all of them make her head and her chest and her skin tingle, make her smile even though she doesn’t want to, make her feel alive and free and flying whenever they spend time together and hollow and lonely and in pieces whenever she’s away from them.  
Nico holds her heart in her hands, plays ping pong with it, doesn’t even know it.

That Thursday she sits next to Karolina and their arms are always brushing. Karolina can’t focus on anything else. 

Nico looks at her the whole day, sends her soft smiles, brushes dust off her shoulder, bites her lip with unsure eyes and Karolina wants to hate her for it, she really does.  
Instead she is a giggling, blushing, hopeful mess and she knows it will hurt in the end.  
She knows Alex and Nico had a fight, from the way they had arrived, both stomping and glowering and always five feet between them, to the way they sit on opposite ends of the table, knows because she has Nico’s unbidden attention, because Alex is hiding behind his laptop screen and because they both are so loudly trying to ignore each other they are taking up the whole room.

She is not the only one who notices. Gert keeps throwing her looks and lifting her eyebrows questioningly and Molly is looking between the two of them, confused, and even Chase has picked up on the weird mood.

Karolina tries very hard to tell herself this: the fact that Nico is acting like this with her has nothing to do with herself and all to do with Alex. She tries hard not to engage.  
She fails.  
Her grin is stretching her cheeks wide and she can’t stop looking at Nico and she can’t stop soaking up the attention.  
She wants to tell her everything, how she thinks that if she’d take her bracelet off now she’d glow the brightest she’s ever glowed.  
How the way Nico is looking at her feels better than flying.  
Karolina wants to tell her about the heart Nico is holding and how fragile it is.

She doesn’t, of course. But only because her lips hurt from smiling and because she’s not sure she’d get all the words out right.

 

Shortly before they leave, when they are all packing their stuff together and it’s dark outside, Nico gets up to take a call from her mom, says she’d step outside for a minute.

Karolina doesn’t notice Alex get up, doesn’t notice Nico finishing her talk, doesn’t notice the two of them meeting in front of the big window, doesn’t see Alex offering Nico his jacket and her shrugging it off. 

When she looks up she is still smiling, stuffing her textbook into her backpack and thinking about asking Nico if she wants a ride home, and then she notices them, only as silhouettes illuminated by a streetlight, her dark clothes and his patterned shirt, the way he is leaning down to catch her chin in his hand, tilting her head up, placing the softest kiss on her lips, just like in a movie, and just like in a movie Nico doesn't stop him, she kisses back.

Karolina knows what flying feels like and this is everything else.  
This is crashing and burning and loosing control and this is hurt and this is pain.  
She looks down at the textbook still in her hand, biting down on her lip hard, and there it is again, copper, and trying to fight back the tears because this is her fault, this was her mistake, she was the stupid one, so so stupid. 

She feels Gert sit down next to her and when Karolina glances at her from under her lashes she sees sad eyes and understanding.  
Gert doesn’t say anything, but she reaches for Karolina’s purse and places it in her backpack, and then she squeezes her hand, once, without looking at her, which Karolina thinks means that she knows and that it’s okay and that she’s sorry.

These are all things she wouldn’t want to hear, because they would make it real and they would make her something to be pitied, but the way Gert says them, all without words, it’s okay, it helps.  
Karolina wants to say thanks, but that would mean they would have to acknowledge the worlds between them, all these unspoken truths they are both keeping about what their hearts want, and so she doesn’t.

She squeezes back, just once, and she thinks Gert understands anyway.

 

()()()()

 

Some nights Karolina doesn’t sleep at all, because she is afraid she won’t get to die in her dreams and because sometimes saving Nico makes her hate Nico, makes her remember that when she wakes up Nico will still be kissing Alex and breaking her heart.

(She knows she's being unfair. Nico doesn't know and even if she did, Karolina wouldn't own her, Nico wouldn't owe her and the both of them would still be their own people. And she wants Nico to be happy, first and foremost, she really really does. She just wishes she could be the one making her happy.)

So some nights she doesn’t even start to close her eyes. Instead she lies in her bed and takes off her bracelet and listens to her “very in love with goth girls“ playlist (which features a lot of Hayley Kiyoko songs because, duh, and which she only ever listens to with headphones on.) and watches the way her skin throws rainbows against the wall while she floats six feet off the ground.

The world feels somewhat unreal those nights, like time has stopped, like maybe she's the only person alive.  
Her thoughts are slow motion, her body feels more like her own than ever before.

She wishes things could be like this all the time: just her floating above all the drama and problems and her wrists free and weightless, only miles and miles to go up.

But in the end, she still misses Nico, still imagines her laying on her bed, looking up at her, reaching out her hand. The only reason Karolina would come back down.

She wants to open her windows and fly across town, make sure Nico is asleep and safe and dreaming about things other than her own death.  
Karolina is a coward though, and so she doesn’t. 

Instead she softly sings along to the songs coming from her headphones and stares up at her ceiling, imagines the stars and a universe close enough to touch, balls her hands to fists because she doesn't want to feel how empty they are, wants to forget that there’s no one here to hold them.  
Their parents might be murderers and she may have superpowers and she may not even be human, but she is also a teenager and she is very very painfully in love.

 

()()()()

 

Gert corners her after school one day and Karolina is not completely surprised; she knows there are circles under her eyes and she keeps staring into nothing during class and she’d been silent during their last hangouts and these are all warning signs, of course, but also: the others don’t look much better.

Alex seems like he hasn't slept in months and Chase is nervous and paranoid and Nico’s been biting her lip (very distracting) and becoming more and more closed off.  
Molly sleeps too much and Gert herself keeps using meaner and more sarcastic jokes as a way to cope.  
Karolina is ready to defend herself but all Gert does is look at her for a whole ten seconds before she let’s go of her arm.

“Wanna get something to eat?“ 

she asks, but it’s not really a question, Karolina knows this, it’s a way out, a chance for her to not do this here, in front of the school, with the others waiting for them a few meters away.

“Sure.“ 

she says, which is the only acceptable answer.

Gert nods, she doesn’t really smile all too often anymore, Karolina noticed, and hikes her bag further up her shoulder.

“Let’s meet at the diner in an hour. I gotta get Molly home first.“

When she goes she doesn’t turn around and Karolina can see Molly ask her something but Gert just shakes her head, gets into her beat up car and leaves without saying goodbye.

Once Karolina reaches the others Nico steps up next to her, their elbows brush on accident and she tries not to shiver from the contact.  
Nico looks up at her, eyes shielded by her round sunglasses and one eyebrow raised in question.

“What was that about?“ 

Karolina shrugs, her hands stuffed into the back-pockets of her jeans to keep them from reaching out for Nico.  
(She really wants to tug her soft black hair behind her ear or clasp one of her hands in her own or hold her face in her palms, feel her soft skin.  
The things she wants are all so innocent but she still feels dirty for thinking about them, it is not her place.)

“No idea.“

she answers, which is kind of the truth anyway.  
Gert made it clear they had to talk but she can only guess what about.

Nico keeps looking at her, eyebrow still raised, and Karolina tries very hard not to react to the attention.  
She keeps shifting on her feet, eyes glued to the ground.  
Nico must sense something in the way she holds herself, because her shoulders relax and her mouth grows softer around the edges, she smiles the smile that makes Karolina’s heart flutter, the one she likes to imagine is only for her.

“Okay.“

Nico says, nudges her shoulder with her own, 

“You’d tell me if something was going on though, right?“ 

Karolina nods, balls her hands so the nails cut into the flesh of her palms, can’t meet Nico’s eyes.  
She keeps forgetting, sometimes, that Nico sees her as a friend, someone to confine in, when for Karolina the other girl is everything and more and all the things in between.

It hurts, the way her feelings have taken this from her: she can not tell Nico her secrets when they are about her.  
It is not fair to either of them.

She says a quick goodbye and gets into her car before anyone can ask more questions, tries to ignore Nico’s eyes following her until she’s out of sight.  
They feel like needles on the back of her head.

 

(She wants to tell Nico, is the thing.  
Wants to say “I am so in love with you my whole body hurts and I can’t tell anyone and it is choking me.  
Can you feel my heartbeat?  
It has been like this ever since we’ve become friends again and I am very sorry, I tried so hard to stop.  
But whenever I think of you my skin hums like there is something underneath it waiting to be freed. I know what flying feels like and I believe kissing you would be better.“  
But can you imagine, all the things she would destroy?)

 

When Karolina arrives Gert is already waiting in a corner booth at the far end of the diner, away from anyone else.  
She is sipping a milkshake and scrolling trough her phone and when Karolina sits down across from her she looks up.  
Gert seems almost surprised that she came, which hurts a little.  
If there is one thing Karolina is it’s loyal.  
She wouldn't stand Gert up.

“Hey!“ 

Gert straightens up and when the waitress appears she smiles fleetingly at her, which is a thing she always does, Karolina knows.  
Gert may be a little krass sometimes but she believes in being nice and polite to people who don’t deserve anything else.  
It is one of the things Karolina really likes about her.

Karolina orders a smoothie and her and Gert both decide on a sandwich and Gert waits until their food arrives before she says anything else.  
When it does she clears her throat and Karolina focuses extra hard on her plate.

“So I heard Chase kissed you.“ 

Karolina tries not to flinch at that and really, she knew this moment was coming.  
Gert is going to hate her for it and she’s going to loose one of her friends.  
Over a boy she doesn’t even like.  
She doesn’t answer.

“That sucks. Has he apologized yet?“ 

Her head flies up too fast, neck snapping and she almost winces.  
Gert across from her looks serious and not at all like she wants to bite Karolina’s head off, which is the reaction she had been expecting.  
Karolina’s hands flutter like birds, she can’t seem to get them to settle down, they get twisted up in each other and smooth down the collar of her shirt and play with her cutlery before Gert takes them into hers, which is not really a Gert thing to do.

“Apologized?“ 

her voice is very weak and confused and maybe she is too.

Gert smirks a little but her eyes are still serious, they do not stray from her own.

“Well, yes. He kissed you without checking if that’s okay first, and that’s not cool.“

Karolina is trying hard not to look as stupid as she feels, her hand probably sweaty in Gert’s own, she feels like apologizing.

“I mean, it’s fine. He didn’t know.“

It’s not really fine, but she thinks that is more because of her own problems than because of anything Chase did.  
He is very handsome and nice, if she were anybody else she probably would have enjoyed that kiss a lot.  
But things being as they are, she hasn’t, and instead she can still taste coal on her tongue and the ghost of his lips on hers. 

Karolina wonders if she will ever have a kiss that she’ll enjoy, or maybe she just isn’t meant for these things.

Gert leans back in her seat, letting go of Karolina’s hands to instead cross her arms across her chest.  
Karolina feels like she said the wrong thing.  
She wipes her palms on her jeans.

“That’s it though. He didn’t know. So he should have asked.“

The way Gert looks at her makes her feel small, she thinks maybe she is very naive for not knowing these things like Gert does.  
Karolina just shrugs though, her shoulders feel heavy.

“We’re friends.“ 

like that explains things.  
She knows it doesn’t but she’s run out of things to say, out of ways to protect Chase.  
Gert’s eyes soften.

“Consent is important, K. Being friends doesn’t change that.“

Karolina thinks maybe they are not just talking about the Chase thing, and she remembers that while Gert had her own concerns about what happened between Karolina and the Lacrosse guys at the party, she never got that explanation from Chase.  
She realizes what the dark circles under her eyes and the long silences and the starring off into nothing could mean to Gert.  
She thinks maybe she should stop not knowing what to say and clear some things up.

Karolina straightens her back and folds her hands in her lap.  
She looks Gert straight in the eye and for the fist time she sees the fear there, the concern lurking under the surface.  
Her heart is suddenly very full for her friend.

“Okay, I know you are right. Chase kissing me like that wasn’t cool, and I didn’t like it. But Gert,“ here she pauses for a second because she wants Gert to really understand: “I really think it was just a mistake. Chase isn’t a bad guy, he isn’t like…“

Karolina takes a deep breath because it still isn’t the easiest thing to talk about; all the possibilities of what could have happened.

“At that party, with those Lacrosse guys? Chase saved me there. If he didn’t come in when he did… He stopped them and he didn’t even have to think about it, didn’t even waste one second contemplating what that could mean for him in school and with the team and everything.  
He’s a good person.“

Karolina really means this, really believes it, not in a way that means that Chase’s mistakes are unimportant and that the things he did wrong should be ignored because of the things he did right; but in the end, what it comes down to is this: if she’d told Chase how him kissing her made her feel, how unwelcome that was, he would feel so guilty and he would realize that it was bad, not asking before, ignoring all her signals showing him she’s uninterested.  
Also, she needs Gert to know that at that Party, she’d gotten away, that nothing happened, not really, that Gert can stop looking at her with those uncertain eyes, with that concern and worry.  
Karolina is fine, would be, if it wasn’t for everything else.

Gert stares at her for a second longer, searches her eyes for something and when she finds what she’d been looking for she smiles, a small little thing, and the relief behind it is palpable.  
Karolina remembers all the unspoken things between them, all those feelings they have for people they are sure are not meant for them.  
She knows that Gert doesn’t see the way Chase looks at her, all the softness on him that he can’t hide.  
Gert does not really belong in their little club of unrequited feelings, and once she notices Karolina will be all alone again.  
Good thing she’s already mostly used to it.

 

They eat the rest of their food in silence, but it’s the easy kind.  
Karolina thinks Gert may very well be her best friend at the moment, because of all the ways Nico can not be just her friend anymore, as hard as she tries.  
She watches the other girl pluck the pickles from her sandwich and stir the straw of her milkshake.  
Her glasses are askew, her hair a little messy and still so pretty, there is a small blob of mustard sticking to her cheek.

Karolina is really glad and very lucky, she knows, to sit here with Gert.  
A few weeks back this was something she thought she’d never have again, sandwiches and milkshakes and the absence of expectations: to always be perfect and pretty and exactly what people want and need her to be.  
How horrible it is, that she owes all of this to their murderer parents, that she is silently and shamefully glad of the way things turned out; sometimes, when things are dark (the night, her room, her head), she apologizes to Destiny.

She really wants her to be alive, she really wishes they could have stopped their parents, but if she had to choose: Destiny or her friends, Destiny or Alex and Molly and Gert, Chase and Nico, always, most of all, Nico, she is not sure … she never let’s herself think far enough to get an answer.  
Every time Nico smiles at her she thinks she may have one already anyway.

Karolina is pretty sure, when she is honest with herself, that she is not a good person, that that makes her very very selfish.  
She will learn to live with it. It’s a small price to pay, for having friends like hers.

 

After Gert pays the bill, something they don’t fight over since both their families have money enough for it to not be an issue, after they shrug their jackets on and gather their stuff, on the way out the door, she doesn’t look at Karolina when she asks her question:

“Do you wanna talk about Nico?“ 

Karolina stumbles in her steps thanks to all the weight those words hold: Nico means her feelings, her feelings mean her sexuality, her sexuality means church and her mother and not living up to a standard she’d been groomed for ever since her birth.

It is a very heavy question to ask, on a weekday afternoon with their respective car keys in hand, a few meters from saying goodbye.

Maybe that’s the reason Gert asked it: Karolina can clearly see the emergency exit, can easily find an excuse to leave right now, there are no corners she is backed into.  
Her hands are shaking but it’s just them, they are all alone in the parking lot and no one is listening.

She thinks, maybe, any other day, any other time, in a universe where she can let her identity crisis be the most important thing right now, where these feelings she’s having are not overtrumped by killing and secrets and real life villains, she would have said yes, would have taken Gert up on her offer.  
But with things being as they are:  
she shakes her head. It may be a little frantic.

“No. I’m good, no. Thanks, but no.“

Gert nods, and Karolina thinks she probably understands: once she opens this drawer, the one with Nico’s name on it, she won’t be able to close it again, and then it will all be too much.  
Things will come crawling up and she’ll drown under them, in them, surrounded by them.  
She is not strong enough to deal with everything right now, and everything is Nico.  
In Gert’s case, maybe everything is Chase.

Maybe that’s why Gert doesn’t ask again, and instead knocks her shoulder very gently into Karolina’s, and then turns and walks into the direction of her car.

It’s a goodbye that feels fitting for them: these small little touches they share when they can not find words, the affirmation that they are not alone, the promise to be there if needed.  
Karolina thinks that as far as personalized handshakes between friends go, this is better.

 

()()()()

 

It is the third night in a row that she doesn't sleep, or it would be, if not for the heavy weight her head has become.  
Karolina tries to distract herself by doing homework and by ignoring the glowing letters on her alarm clock spelling out 3am.

Up until two hours ago she had been listening to the voices of her parents, screaming at each other in their own special way, which had not much to do with screaming at all.  
The cutting, snide remarks of her mother against her dad’s guilt tripping and exhausted scoffs, a fair fight, Karolina thinks, as fas as playing foul goes.

She had tried not to notice her name coming up more and more often, the worry they share over her being turned into ammunition against each other.  
Her mother has too many expectations, doesn’t spend enough time with her, her father thinks.  
Her dad is smothering her, wrapping her in cotton, doesn’t give Karolina the chance to confide in him regarding anything else than the superficial things, her mom snaps back.  
They may both be right, she can imagine, but the thing that is making it hard for her to exist right now is the memory of her mother in a red robe, of the trust in Destiny’s eyes, and then the terror, right before dying.

It’s the tingling of her own skin whenever she’s near Nico, the painful twitches of her heart when she sees her and Alex together, the urgent and ever present need to be close to the other girl, to touch her, the guilt and shame she feels over it.  
It’s the lack of sleep she’s getting, making her bones and brain tired, the never ending static noise in her ears, the cotton in her head, the lead behind her eyes.

 

Right now, she’s loosing consciousness over her physics formulas, all the numbers and signs swimming together and then all she sees are black dots, which turn into a sky full of star constellations.  
A pretty sight, Karolina notices, while she’s floating over the city roofs.

The streets below her are mostly empty, except for seldom cars, creating a neon landscape with the streaks of color the stoplights leave behind, making the city look like one of the Elsa Bleda photographs she has hung up in her room.  
Very dystopian, very eery, very much reminiscent of the liminal spaces Nico had told her about once.  
Karolina herself is a glowing beam of light in the sky, her very own flashlight.  
She notices her arms and legs, light as feathers, not being weighted down by everything going on in her head, like they had been for the last weeks.

Her body seems to know the destination even when she does not, and she lets herself be tugged along, the stars winking at her, flirting, almost.  
She waves back.  
There is a smile on her lips, she can feel it tugging at the corners of her mouth, and warm excitement in her tummy, right next to the claws around her heart, the ones that tell her something dark is coming, even while she feels nothing but pleasant anticipation.  
The knowledge is there, in the back of her head: this is not a good dream. She’s not sure she has those anymore.

Slowly and silently she begins to recognize the part of town she’s in, the modern houses, glass walls and automatic gates, and golf courses instead of swimming pools in the backyards, and slowly the color seeps out of everything around her, loses it’s glow, until she is climbing into Nico’s bedroom window and everything is black and white.

Oh. She knows what is going to happen now.

But dream Karolina does not, she stares at dream Nico sitting on her carpet, books lying around her and lips curled to one corner of her mouth, biting the inside of her lips.  
Nico, even in her dreams, is so beautiful she makes Karolina’s palms sweat and her heart stutter in it’s steps, but there is always something off about her.  
She can never quite get her right.

Nico turns around, once Karolina is stepping out of the shadows of Nicos window, and despite the lack of colors the tear tracks on her cheeks, the red of her lipstick, these are all things Karolina can see, or maybe she just knows they are there.  
It is her dream after all.  
Nico smiles wobbly, swipes the back of her hand under her eyes, her voice is a quiet gust of wind in the room.  
Karolina only now notices the deafening silence surrounding them, pressing down on them until it becomes harder to breathe.

“Hey Kar.“

There is no surprise to Nico’s words, maybe she’d been expecting her.  
Karolina suddenly feels sorry for making her wait.

“Hey Nico.“ she says.

Nico pats the space next to her on the carpet and Karolina sits down there, their elbows almost brushing but still too much room between them.  
She can see now: all around Nico, the books she’d been looking through, they are family albums, a smiling and happy Amy looking back at her from every single photo.  
It hurts in a hidden part of her, wakes something she had shut away.

“Oh.“ she whispers, for lack of anything else to say.

Nico looks at her but she is smiling now, wide and unfamiliar.  
Honest, but not Nico.  
Her teeth are too white.

“Amy was always the pretty one, don’t you think?“ 

She doesn’t sound bitter, or sad, or anything else but curious.  
She is also not really talking to Karolina, it seems, and more to herself.  
Karolina shifts on her place on the floor. 

“I think you are very pretty too.“ she says, blushing and quiet and half hoping Nico didn’t hear her.

Nico sighs, her eyes are sorry now, full of pity, it makes Karolina feel very stupid. Her chest aches.

“Of course you do.“

Real Nico, Karolina knows, would never be this cruel. Would never make Karolina feel this way.  
But dream Nico changes from one night to another. Sometimes she strokes Karolina’s cheek with affection in her eyes and sometimes she sends mean words and cutting smiles her way and sometimes she ignores her completely.  
It never changes the fact that Karolina will die for her, willingly and without remorse.

(Some nights, even, Nico asks her to. Presses a gun in Karolina’s hand and tells her to shoot herself, that it’s the only way to save Nico, even when there is no danger present.  
Karolina always pulls the trigger, and it has nothing to do with heroics.)

Here, in this dream, Nico obviously knows about Karolina’s poorly hidden feelings for her, does not reciprocate them and has decided that they make her something to be pitied.  
This is how she knows it is a nightmare: it calls upon her darkest fear.

 

Mrs. Minoru knocks on the door before opening, a smile on her face; what a surreal sight.  
She looks at the both of them, sitting on the ground, still not close enough to touch, and Karolina notices the albums in front of them have turned into history and spanish books, pencils in their hands like they are just doing homework.

“I heard voices. I didn't know you’d be coming Karolina. Are you staying for dinner?“ 

her voice is very pleasant and warm, all things the real Nico’s mom is not, and somehow this version is scarier.  
Karolina looks at Nico for an answer: this may be her dream but she is only a minor character in it, Nico holds all the power.  
Nico looks back at her, musters her face, and then her shoulders drop a little, she sighs again, slightly condescending.

When she turns to her mom she is smiling.

“She’s not staying, mom. By the time dinner is ready this will all be over.“

Mrs. Minoru leaves and Karolina stares at the palms of her hand, laying turned up on her knees: black and white. She knows what Nico means with over.

 

As soon as the door closes again there is a loud rustling behind them that makes Karolina flinch before she turns around. Nico just keeps on reading her history books, pencil sticking out of her bun now.

Alex is stumbling out of Nico’s closet, clothes in disarray and hair messy, there is a flush on his cheeks and lipstick on his neck.  
Karolina looks away.

“That was close. Your mom almost caught us.“

He sits down next to Nico on her other side, their elbows are brushing and their knees are too.  
Nico hums.

“It’s fine. I heard her come up the stairs. You had enough time to hide.“

“You mean you had enough time to make me hide.“

Alex’s grin is crooked and cocky, it’s Karolina’s least favorite of his.  
Nico rolls her eyes but Karolina can see she is not irritated. The both of them lean closer into each other, further away from Karolina.  
Her heart is beating painfully, her throat feels like sandpaper. She feels so small.  
Her lips are moving before she has a chance to stop them:

“Why didn’t I have to hide?“

Nico and Alex turn to her and they look almost surprised that she’s still there.  
She wishes she wasn’t.  
She can’t leave, there is still something she has to do.

Nico has that look in her eyes again, the pity and second-hand embarrassment, Alex just smirks at her in a way the real Alex never would: his eyes are hard while he does it and there is no warmth behind them.  
Nico takes her hand, Karolina almost wishes she wouldn’t.

“Oh Karolina.“ 

her voice is a little too high, a little too mean, a little too much not the real Nico, but Karolina still can’t stop herself from staring at her lips. 

“Don’t you get it. There is nothing between us to hide.“

“Oh.“ says Karolina, and suddenly her hand feels like glass: fragile and cold and easy to shatter.

She doesn’t know if she’s imagining it, but she can almost feel Nico squeeze tighter: trying very hard to break her.

 

This time it happens like this.  
They are still studying when the window behind them shatters, thousand little pieces cutting their skin, raining down on them.  
The sound of gunshots is deafening, the walls are littered with holes in a matter of seconds, they don’t stop coming.

Somehow, in between all this, Alex finds shelter under the bed and Karolina rolls to the side to crouch low behind Nico’s desk.  
There is blood running down her face from a cut next to her eyebrow, her hands are a battlefield, black and sticky, her knees are not much better.  
In the middle of the room is Nico, curled around herself, arms around her head and she looks so small.

Karolina’s breathing is ragged, it feels like fire is running trough her veins.  
Her mind is an endless loop of Not Nico Not Nico Not Nico and it still takes her far too long to start moving.  
Nico is looking at her from across the room, eyes wide with fear, tears running down her cheeks and Karolina can see her lips forming her name.  
She is always most like the real version these few seconds before she may die.

Karolina is up and running the next second, dodging bullets all the way to Nico, which is impossible: she can feel them whizzing by her ear and hitting the wall next to her and grazing her arm.  
Nico clings to her, the moment Karolina is close enough to throw her body over hers, she can feel the smaller girl shaking under her.

It doesn’t take long after that: the first bullet slams into her back, shatters her spine, she loses feeling over her legs instantly; it catches her so violently she gets spun around and then the second buries itself in her chest, just over her heart, almost at her throat.  
She slides off of Nico slowly, painfully, leaving behind a streak she knows would be red if everything wasn’t still in black and white.

The gunshots stop then, it is silent so suddenly it makes her ears ring.

Karolina is staring at the ceiling and she notices then that she has never died in Nico’s room before; in her kitchen once, in her own home some, many times in a car or at school or at the mall. All public places.  
She normally doesn’t get privacy like this.

Nico’s face is leaning over her now, her small hands pressing down on her wound, but Karolina knows: it is useless.  
She can feel the warmth under her back widening, can feel the copper creeping up her lungs and filling her mouth, drowning her from the inside out.  
It is a feeling she has almost gotten used to.

Nico has tears streaming down her face and Karolina wants nothing more than to lift her arm to swipe them away but she can not feel most of her body.  
She coughs, weakly, and it makes Nico sob.  
There are hands in her hair, getting caught in knots again and again but it’s a minuscule pain compared to everything else.

What she goes with this time is this:

1\. “I’m sorry.“

Nico shakes her head, smiles at her wobbly but her eyes are focused on Karolina’s.

“It’s okay.“ she says. 

Her voice is wet, Karolina can not imagine anything more beautiful as the last sound she hears.

“This was always supposed to happen.“

Nico lays a hand on her cheek, her eyes are only black, not dark dark brown like they usually are, and Karolina aches for the real version of her.

“Nico.“ she whispers. 

It is only a breath, a gust of air, and afterwards her body is still, her chest doesn’t move.  
It is always, in all the versions of her death, the last thing she says.

 

She wakes up the next morning gasping for air, and for a second she can not feel her legs.  
It makes her tear the blankets off of her in a panic, getting caught in them and falling out of bed.  
Her alarm is still blaring but she can not make herself get up to turn it off.

She curls her body up in a ball, wraps her arms around herself, tries to ignore the sun streaming in through the blinds, the sound of footsteps on their way to her room.  
She can still see the pity in Nico’s eyes, the disgust hidden behind it, can still feel Nico’s palm on her cheek, the blood filling up her chest, all the choking and none of the air.

“this was always supposed to happen.“

the words echo around her head.

Karolina can hear her dad entering her room, can feel him kneel down next to her, his big, heavy hand on top of her hair.  
He is asking her questions and she could not answer even if she tried.  
She keeps squeezing her eyes shut: all the colors are too bright.

After a while she registers her dad leaving the room, the warmth of his body gone, leaving her shivering in her tank top and shorts.  
It is not enough to make her move; she is still so exhausted from a lack of sleep and from dying and after every one of her dreams she finds it harder and harder to recover, her body feels weaker and weaker, heavier.  
Her teeth shatter in the California summer.

“this was always supposed to happen.“

Every morning that she wakes up she feels like more and more of a failure.

(Her dad calls the school and says she’s sick.  
She pretends to be asleep when he brings her breakfast and locks the door after he’s left: she can hear her mothers voice downstairs.  
She can not feel safe with her parents in the house, she knows, and knows not, what they are capable of.)

 

()()()()

 

She stays home the day after too, and the day after, and on day four somebody knocks on her door.

Her head is still a little cloudy, she is still a little weak, a little guilty: they don’t really have time for her to be sick, to lay in bed, not with everything going on with their parents and their weird powers.  
But it’s not really her fault, is it, that she feels so out of sorts.  
Nowadays she is always a little nauseous, always a little on edge, like she is waiting for the inevitable to happen, like it is only a matter of time before she’ll have to do what she was meant to do.  
There is a hook just behind her belly button and it is pulling.

Karolina spent those last days trying very hard not to think about any of that, not to think at all, and it has helped, a little bit.  
She hasn’t had any of her dreams anymore, not a real one anyway.  
Flashes from old ones, sure, and she can still hear dream Nico’s voice whenever she closes her eyes, but nothing like she is used to by now.  
Her dad brings her soup and fruit cut into stars and hearts and magazines and he makes it so hard for Karolina to remember that she can not trust him, that he is not really the Frank she knows anymore.  
Her mother is mostly absent, and Karolina resignedly imagines all the teenagers that could be on the way to losing their lives while she lays in bed in their seaside villa eating pineapple.

But back to the knock on the door:  
The others had texted her, of course they had (she tells herself, is still painfully surprised to see that they care), and had kept her in the loop about everything going on.  
Chase, living closest, came over the day before to bring her homework but she had pretended to be asleep then, breathing deep and heavy and eyes closed without clenching them.  
She’s gotten good at it, born out of her need to avoid any and all conversation with her father.  
So while she hadn’t been completely closed off from the outside, this is the first time she is actually about to be confronted with actual interaction.

She hopes, silently, secretly, that it is Gert or Molly or even Chase.  
She hopes, of course, even more privately, that it is Nico, because she always hopes for Nico, even when she knows it will only hurt her now.  
When the door opens she sees dark hair and dark clothes and dark lips and asks herself, then, if her prayers have been answered or ignored.

 

Nico is smiling but her eyes are not necessarily.  
It reminds Karolina a lot of dream Nico, which makes her chest squeeze tight, but then again, dream Nico never looks this unsure of herself, standing in her bedroom like she’s never been there before.  
Karolina smiles back, tries to ignore the old ratty t shirt she’s wearing and the way her hair is a messy pile on top of her head, her shorts that have holes in them.  
Nico looks gorgeous, the way she always does, all cool and collected and stylish, and her hair is open and soft today, her eyes highlighted by dark red eyeshadow.  
Karolina has missed her.

“Hey you.“

Nico’s lips twitch while she’s speaking, stepping further into her room and setting her bag down on Karolina’s desk.  
The sound is too loud in her room, after days of silence, and it almost makes her flinch.  
Nico notices.

“Hey.“

Karolina tries hard not to be weird, but she also can’t look Nico in the eyes while the other girl sits down in her plush desk chair, legs crossed and elbows resting on her knees.  
The chair squeaks with every spin.  
Karolina’s head spins with every whiff of Nico’s perfume that’s coming her way.  
She feels a little bit like an addict reunited with her drug of choice.

Nico stops the chair with her feet, her black platform sneakers cooler than everything about Karolina is, her elbows resting on the armrests with a kind of faked nonchalance that is so unlike her it sets Karolina on edge.  
Nico looks at her, all dark dark brown eyes. Karolina lets out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.

“So. You’ve been sick.“ 

It should have been a question but it isn’t. Everything about Nico being here feels very deliberate and Karolina is only waiting for the real reason to make itself known.  
Her fingers have a hard time keeping still. They are tapping rhythms to the beating of her heart on her thigh. Too fast too fast too fast.

She nods. 

“Yeah. Just your normal flu kinda thing. Knocked me out real good.“

Her voice is flat where it shouldn’t be, too high on other parts.  
She is bad at lying mostly always, with Nico the hardest thing is that she wants to be honest.  
That’s the complicated thing about being very enamored, very in love: Karolina wants to overshare, wants to tell her everything, knows Nico would be able to make it all better.  
She is, in a way, already making it better now.  
Her heart may beat a thousand miles a minute, her head may spin in circles, maybe her breath is coming a little short, but - her body feels lighter again, it is easier to move, she notices her grimy hair and sweaty skin, she wants to get up and back to things.  
She feels more alive again. What a scary thought. The control Nico has.

Nico is still mustering her. There is no malice in her eyes.  
Of course there isn’t, Karolina tells herself, this is not Dream Nico. (not dream nico not dream nico not dream nico. Says it three times so she believes it.)

“Did you lie to me?“ Nico asks.

Karolina is confused but scared.

“What?“

“When you said you’d tell me if something was going on.“

“I…“

“Did you lie then?“

“Nico…“

“Because Amy lied.“

“Oh.“ Oh. Of course.

Karolina feels very selfish and very stupid. There are so many things she keeps forgetting to think about. One of them: Nico lost her sister. Nico’s sister killed herself.  
Their parents are murderers, there are superpowers and witchcraft, and kidnappers and dead teenagers but before all that, back when they where still only kids, when life was so so stupid, how she misses it, before everything happened, this happened: Nico found her big sister dead in her room and no one suspected anything and no one helped and there had been nothing Nico could do.  
And Karolina is her friend, is supposed to be anyway, and she had forgotten that.

Nico does that thing with her mouth where she tries to keep the corners of it from tugging down, she’s gripping the armrests tightly with her midnight black nails, she’s not looking at Karolina anymore.

“Because Amy lied and then she was dead.“

Karolina stands up, after two seconds of silence (because Nico never talks about this, never mentions Amy, never mentions Amy and death and she looks a little bit like it’s taking a lot for her not to break from the inside out.) and she crosses the room.  
Once she’s in front of Nico she sits down, right there in front of her, on the ground, in her ratty shirt and the shorts that have holes in them.  
Nico’s hair is a curtain around her face. Karolina wants so bad to tuck it behind her ears, her hands are practically tingling.  
There are many things she could say and do, too many mistakes she could make. She knows though, the biggest one would be to do nothing at all.

“I am sorry.“ 

It’s the first time she’s awake and says the words. Karolina almost expects bullets to come flying from nowhere, can feel her body tensing ready to protect Nico.  
No, she tells herself. I am awake. I am so awake I can feel my whole body. The ground is cold, my limbs are still heavy, it is late in the afternoon, Nico came to visit me, Nico is here, Nico is …  
She looks up, catches a glimpse of Nico’s face through her curtain of hair. Sees her eyes.  
Nico is sad. She thinks. Nico needs me alive. She is not here to have Karolina die for her.  
I am awake, she says.

“Maybe I did lie. I’ve just … so many things are going on and I didn’t want to burden you with my personal drama I guess.“

Karolina shrugs, looks down - it’s not the whole truth, she knows. But it may be enough to comfort Nico, to reassure her.  
Karolina is not Amy.

Nico looks up a little, pushes her hair to the side in a messy unconscious move that makes Karolina want to smile so so bad, Nico is the loveliest human, really, but she can’t think about this now.

“You’re not …“ Nico rolls her eyes, huffs. Slides down to the floor in one graceful motion, sits across from Karolina.

“You’re a little stupid sometimes.“ 

“Ouch.“

Nico grimaces:

“No, not like that. Just, obviously you wouldn’t `burden me´. I’m your friend, I am here so you can talk about what’s bothering you. I thought you knew that. I know I can be brash and rude but …“

Karolina is already shaking her head.

“No! No. I do know that. I didn’t… ugh.“ She throws her head back. Nico grins a little. Karolina tries not to brighten too much at that.

“I didn’t not talk about my problems with you because of you, I did not talk about them with you because of me.“

“That sounds kind of unnecessarily complicated.“

“It is. Believe me it is.“

They are looking at each other, both are kind of smiling now, which is a good thing, Karolina believes, and it makes her chest feel lighter already.  
Nico is a good friend, she really is, and it does hurt Karolina that she can’t talk about all these things with her.  
But it’s like she said: it’s not Nico’s fault. It’s all her own.  
Her feelings, her inability to push them aside, to ignore them, the dreams she keeps having that make it so much more complicated to function normally around Nico, around Alex, around all of her friends really - she can’t help but keep thinking “I’m not supposed to be here, this is not my purpose. I do not belong between the rest of you.“  
At the same time though, she never feels like belonging somewhere as much as she does when she is with them.  
With Gert and Chase and Molly, with Alex and Nico.  
It hurts, to love a group of people so much, always believing that she will lose them. That she will have to leave them.

Nico’s eyes are still on hers and they are so soft, the prettiest brown, and Karolina decides to be a little bit brave for a moment longer.

“If I’m being honest, I wasn’t really sick. I was just overwhelmed I think. There is…there are a few things I am not handling my best at the moment, things about me that I have a hard time coming to terms with and I want to talk about them but I’m just not ready yet.“

Nico looks at her, her eyebrow cocked.

“You do know that I’ve seen what you can do, right? The glow thing. That cool rainbow shit.“

Karolina laughs. It sounds a little panicked.

“Yeah. That’s… eh, that’s not what I meant though.“

For a second it looks like Nico is going to ask, but then she takes a deep breath and leans back a little.

“Okay.“

Karolina’s relieved sigh is not even a little inconspicuous.

“I’m sorry if I made you worry. And I promise that I’ll come to you when I’m ready, really, but I think right now I just need to work through this on my own.“

Nico smiles at her again. One day this will be the cause of Karolina’s death.

“Well then. As long as we’re being honest: I guess I overreacted a bit. But …“ - here she inhales long and sharp, like she’s preparing herself for what she will say.  
“But the way you’ve been so absent and then the not talking to anybody for longer and longer.  
With Amy I didn’t see the signs, any signs really, maybe I was just stupid and too caught up in myself but I never even thought she’d…“

Karolina wants so bad to help with the way Nico’s voice cracks and with the way her eyes get misty. Wants to hold her face in her hands and kiss away the bloody imprints of teeth on her lips.  
But she knows she can’t, knows this is nothing she can fix. Nico is grieving, will probably never stop grieving, but if she is talking about it Karolina thinks she may also be healing.  
That doesn’t make it hurt any less when Nico’s hands start to shake.

“I didn’t want to make the same mistake again.  
One day Amy was there and then the next she wasn't and I kept thinking how I hadn’t seen you for one and then two and then three days and what if the next day would be the one your parents would call my parents and tell them they found you dead in your bed and I would know then, I would know that I’d had a bad feeling but I didn’t do anything about it. So I thought I’d just come over and see how you were because I can’t do that again, Kar.  
And I’m sorry if I made it sound like you had to tell me your secrets or something, that’s not it I just want you to know that you can…“

Nico is full on rambling now and her eyes are wet, no tears are falling but Karolina isn’t sure if that makes a difference because she thinks somehow, after all, deep down Nico is crying.  
She has never seen Nico, who is usually so cool and collected, like this before but she thinks maybe it was a long time coming, and she thinks maybe somebody should have tried harder to talk to Nico about Amy.  
Maybe she should have been that somebody.  
But it doesn’t help to think about what could and should have been done.  
Karolina is here right now, and here means on the ground in her room with a Nico that is falling apart in front of her, here means awake and alive, and there are no bullets to throw herself in front of and no fire to carry Nico out of and no car crash to save her from.

“Nico.“ she whispers.

Nico sniffs.

“Yeah.“ She whispers back.

“I’m going to hug you now, if that’s okay.“

The room is very quiet, but not quiet like her dreams are, not oppressing and choking. Karolina’s window is open and she can almost smell the sea breeze from here.  
The air is hot but not humid.  
It is, she notices for the first time, a really beautiful day out.

Nico nods.

Karolina folds her into her arms without worrying if she is touching too much and holding back too little.  
This is not about her.  
Nico presses her nose into Karolina’s shoulder and winds her arms around her waist.  
Karolina turns her face into Nico’s hair, her arms encircling her shoulders.  
They fit together so well, it is a tragedy really.

For a minute they just keep breathing like that, clinging to each other.  
Karolina knows, without a doubt, that she could stay like this forever.  
Karolina knows, without a doubt, that she is in love with Nico, completely and utterly.  
She accepts that now. It is a beautiful thing, to love someone so wholeheartedly.  
It is painful too, if you know you can not be loved back the same way.

Nico leans back, fixes her hair, smiles a wobbly, weak smile. Her cheeks are a little red.

“Thanks. I needed this. To know that you were not going to… to do the same thing Amy did.“

Karolina brushes a strand of long blonde hair from Nico’s shoulder. Fixes her eyes on Nico’s and can’t really look away then.

“I’m not. I wouldn’t. I’ll be fine Nico. We’ll all be.“

She smiles. 

Karolina knows, without a doubt, that she can never tell Nico about her dreams.  
Nico would never forgive her.

 

()()()()

End Part 1


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The feedback for chapter 1 was better than everything I could have hoped for, thank you !  
> (It still took me 84 years for part two though.)
> 
> Btw forgot to say: the title is from a Richard Siken poem called "Meanwhile" which you should definitely read but then again just read everything from Siken and then come to Tumblr and talk with me about how it made you feel the most

She wakes up on Sunday the same week and feels her pillow is wet.  
She wakes up and it is already late into the day.  
The sun is high in the sky, her window is open, her door is locked.  
She does not remember locking it.

Her pillow is wet -  
her cheeks are too.  
She has been crying in her sleep. Her mouth tastes like copper and she licks her lips -, yes, she’d been biting her lip too.  
You know that feeling, when you are falling asleep when you shouldn't fall asleep and you wake up and think hours have passed just to see that it’s only been minutes?   
Karolina feels like that.  
Her head is heavy and clouded and her limbs are slower than they should be. They tingle when she moves them.

She looks around her room and for a moment doesn’t know what day it is.  
Her dad is outside her door talking to her, like she’d turned the tv on in the middle of a show.  
Karolina gets up and goes into the bathroom, splashes water onto her face.  
In the mirror she sees she is still wearing her clothes from yesterday.  
She does not remember falling asleep.

Karolina wakes up on Sunday the same week and feels wrong.  
Something is different, she thinks. Something is different. She can not put her finger on it.

(She does not remember falling asleep.  
She does not remember dreaming either.   
She does not know if she ended the night alive or dead.  
This is important, somehow.

This will come back, she thinks, to mean something.)

 

()()()()

 

The thing about having evil, murderous parents is that it doesn’t make life move any slower.  
Karolina and the others still have to go to school and do homework and be ridiculed by stupid lacrosse players.  
They still have to survive the heat and the sweat clinging to their backs.  
They are still only teenagers and this is still only another summer in California.  
The days get hotter and hotter.

They’ve started spending the afternoons they are not hiding in an air-conditioned Timely, lounging around the pool at Karolina’s.  
This is only possible because Karolina’s mom has been spending all her time at the church and she isn’t really sure if her father is at another movie shoot or following her mom around like a puppy, but he’s definitely not home.  
Their house is a mausoleum, bathed in soft whites and rugs and plants, but still abandoned and quiet.  
All the doors are closed and Karolina feels drenched in secrets, her own as much as her parents.

This means she is glad whenever the others come over.  
It keeps her from floating around her room (literally floating: a thing she just does now it seems), listening to melancholy music and drowning in her many many thoughts, not many of them healthy or happy.  
It also means that she is surrounded by people she feels understood by.   
She knows they don’t feel at home in their houses anymore either - the oppressing presence of their parents a mutuality they share.  
It is also, at the same time, quite the torture: a pool means swimming and swimming means swim wear, which means, in Nico’s case, the smallest, silkiest black bikini Karolina has ever seen.  
The first time Nico came out wearing it she honest to god choked on her drink and Gert couldn’t stop smiling knowingly at her for a whole day.  
Karolina is learning to accept that Nico will always make her feel the most of things.

 

()()()()

 

The nights are different now.  
She’s not scared of falling asleep anymore.  
The last five days she woke up not remembering any of her dreams.  
Karolina feels better and worse at the same time.  
Her chest is still very heavy.  
She is confused and it always takes her a few seconds to remember where she is.  
Sleep leaves her mind foggy and blank.  
Not like there was never anything there, more like someone wiped it clean.  
Every morning she feels like she forgot something very important.  
Think Karolina, think -  
Did you get to die or did you get to live?   
Are you dead or alive.

(The last five days she wakes up to an empty house.  
No concerned conversations and parental looks.  
Her steps sound hollow on the stairs and she always rinses her plates, never puts them in the dishwasher.  
She’s the only one using them anyway.)

 

()()()()

 

Chase is at her locker, his backpack slung over his shoulder, his hair mussed.  
He’d been looking more tired and tired, the bags under his eyes growing.  
He’s waiting for her, Karolina knows, and he is nervous in the way his fingers keep playing with her lock, his eyes never settling anywhere for long.

Karolina sees him before he sees her and for a second she thinks about turning around.  
School is over for the day, she’s got nothing really important in her locker.  
She could just go to her car and drive home and he would be none the wiser.  
But she remembers then, Chase is her friend.  
Thinks about her talk with Gert: he is a good person.   
She will not be afraid, she decides, when there is nothing to be afraid of.  
If Chase asks her out, or tries to kiss her again - she will be honest this time.  
She knows, deep down, that it would not change their friendship.

When Chase sees her he stands up straight, stroking a hand through his hair.  
He tries to smile but it looks like most of their smiles do these days - never quite whole.  
Karolina tries to smile back. A pathetic effort.

“Hey.“ He nods at her, eyes still flitting around the hall.

Karolina is painfully aware of the fact that the last time it was just the two of them was the night on the roof.  
This, she knows, is not the same. It may not have been so long ago but they both have changed since then.

“Hi.“ she says back and tries not to fidget. When did she get this bad at talking to people?

Chase is still not looking at her but he stops playing with her locker and instead burrows his hands deep deep into the pockets of his jeans.

“I need to apologize to you.“ and when he finally finally looks up and at her his eyes are serious.  
Karolina knows what this is about.

“When I kissed you, that … I get how that was uncool. I basically ignored all your signs and stuff that said you were uninterested and totally read the situation wrong. Didn’t even ask you, not even after, if that was okay. That’s not an excuse or anything! But with how you look at Nic…“

“Did Gert put you up to this?“ Karolina has to interrupt. Can not listen to him say everything she was so long too scared to even think about out loud in the middle of the school day.

Chase stops. Stares at her, confused, his brows furrowed.

“What? No.“

Karolina isn’t convinced.

“Because I told her it was fine. I get that you didn’t mean to make me uncomfortable or anything, I told her this, there’s no reason…“

“Karolina, stop, Gert didn’t make me do anything.“

“She didn’t?“ 

“No. Wait, you talked with Gert about this?“

Karolina blushes but not as much as Chase does. 

“I didn’t want to. She kind of … cornered me.“

Chase laughs, a short little thing, but it’s not hard to hear the fondness in it.  
He looks down, scruffs his shoe against the ground.

“Yeah, I can see that.“  
He looks up again, more sure in himself, the nervousness not so obvious in every move he makes anymore.

“But she didn’t make me apologize or anything. I wanted to talk to you for a while now but I just … chickened out every time.  
I feel really bad though, and you deserve to be told I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t make it better or anything…“

“It does, actually.“

Chase looks at her with a lot of hope, some incredulity. With a pang Karolina remembers what goes on in the Stein household behind closed doors, the worst kept secret.   
Chase probably isn’t very used to his apologies changing things.  
She leans against her locker.

“I’m gonna tell you what I told Gert. Yeah, it wasn’t cool and I didn’t like it and it made me uncomfortable, not just the kiss but the whole…thing. But I still think you’re a good person and you are still my friend.   
Because I believed that if you knew how it made me feel you’d realize that you made a mistake.   
And you’re here, so, you know, I was right.“

Chase shakes his head.

“I don’t even know why I did it, to be honest. Not that I didn’t like you that way! Because I think I did, at the time!   
But also I just always heard my dad telling me about how good we would be together and that it would be important for the Stein name if we would be associated that way with the Dean’s.   
And I thought, finally, a way I could make my him proud, you know?“

Karolina does know, in a way. Not like Chase does, her stakes have never been that high, but she understands what it is like to have so many expectations to live up to, knows what it feels like to disappoint your parents.  
She can’t think of anything to say.

“It was stupid.“

Karolina shakes her head.  
“It’s not stupid that you want to make your dad proud.“

Chase grins at her, the shy, small one that always makes him look 10 years younger.

“Maybe not. But it was definitely stupid to make myself believe I was in love with you and almost ruin our friendship.“  
Karolina grins back.

“Yeah, that was a little stupid.“

They grin at each other and Karolina has missed this. Her and Chase had always been close, not just because they only lived five minutes from each other and thus were the first ones the other sought out when they were bored, but also because they always understood each other in a way they didn’t always with others.  
Sure, ask ten year old Karolina who her best friend is and she would say Nico and ask ten year old Chase the same question and he’d always answer Gert, but on another level, on a I-love-you-like-a-sibling-and-you-annoy-me-just-as-much level, Chase and Karolina would always choose each other.

It is nice to feel like she may be able to get that back.

The bell is ringing and Chase grabs his backpack again, sends her another smile.  
A real one this time. It is so easy to give him one back.

“Alright, I gotta go. But thanks, for forgiving me. You didn’t have to, you know?“

Karolina shrugs.

“I wanted to.“

Chase waves and turns around, and he is almost far enough he’ll be lost among the other students, but Karolina still has one more thing she wants to say, one more thing she feels he should know.

“Chase?“

He turns around, face open and happy.

“Your dad doesn’t deserve you trying to make him proud.“

Chase stops dead, other students stumbling into him a little, his happy smile momentarily slipping.  
Karolina almost feels bad. But it’s true.  
He looks at the poster next to her, not at her face, and then, after a few seconds, meets her eyes again.  
They are conflicted.

He shrugs.

“Maybe.“

and then he’s gone, disappears among their classmates.  
Karolina hopes one day he’ll believe her.

 

()()()()

 

The next day, after school, when they are trying to ignore the homework that’s waiting to be done and are instead laying around the pool in Karolina’s backyard,   
when Alex is at the phone with the pizza place ten minutes away,   
when Nico asks Karolina to put sunscreen on her back and Karolina has an honest to god heart attack that leaves her breathless even half an hour later,  
when Molly is play fighting the dinosaur in the pool, -  
there is Gert, boldly sitting on the same lounger as Chase, getting a book out and inching closer and closer with every page she turns,   
and there is Chase, staring at her with shock first and then with the softest look on his face, all honest eyes and bright bright smile.

When the pizza arrives their whole sides are touching, shoulder to ankle, and Karolina wonders what kind of conversation they had, that made them so brave, so unapologetic.

 

(There’s a corner of her mind that’s itching when she looks at them.  
A part of her brain that tells her “you have seen this before.“  
Like she has a photo in her room that shows the same thing,   
something frozen and acted out and now here is the real deal.  
This here is the truth, in front of her eyes, but somewhere before, there was the lie.  
The same, same but different.  
An itch in her mind.  
She ignores it. Must be the sun.)

 

()()()()

 

On Friday morning Karolina steps into the kitchen only to regret it immediately.  
Her mother is sitting at the counter, tablet in hand, white jeans and white blouse and white white teeth when she smiles at Karolina.  
It makes Karolina’s stomach churn.

She’d spend the last week without seeing her parents once, and sure, a part of her will always be the neglected daughter thirsting for some attention, for some sign that they are not indifferent towards her, but also - knowing what she knows: it is so much easier to pretend she does not waste many many hours crying over what her parents could be when she isn’t confronted with them, when she can ignore, all together, that she even has parents, that her family is not just Nico and Gert and Chase and Alex and Molly and the dinosaur.

But now, here, without warning, is Leslie Dean in all her glory.  
The perfect hair that magazines obsess over, the freckles that brought freckles back in style, the blue eyes that make everyone trust her, the impeccable outfits that turn neighbors jealous.  
That icy smile, the too white teeth, the cold cold look in her eyes, the seldom warmth she is capable of, gifting it onto Karolina whenever she sees fitting only to then withhold it for months without any discernible reason.

(For a long time Karolina felt bad whenever she thought anything bad about her mom: all those articles calling her a saint surely couldn’t be wrong. It had to be her, she was sure, her own fault that she was never good enough of a daughter.  
Then, that scene in the basement, like a silent success: I knew it, she thought, even though she did not know and felt like throwing up, like the truth would make her incapable of ever being happy again. I knew it.)

Leslie Dean, a mother, a wife, a murderer, turns around to face her daughter.  
Karolina feels all kinds of small.

“Morning honey.“

Her voice hasn’t changed, hasn’t turned into a hissing, a spitting, and that’s what is dangerous:   
It is still silky smooth, soft, never too loud, makes Karolina want to melt into her, to be praised and loved the way only a mother can love you.  
The way her mother can’t: unconditional.

Karolina smiles back. She is good at this kind of game even though it brings many dark things back, things she’d just started feeling less of.

“Hey mom.“ 

They do not talk about the week long absence, of course they don’t.   
About how a teenaged daughter shouldn’t live in a house like this alone, without explanation.

Her mom musters Karolina, from head to toe, stops at her face.

“You look better. Well rested.“

Ah, yes. Her breakdown, the thing they don’t call a breakdown, the thing that is whispered about only in the walls of this home (house).  
Karolina Dean, half catatonic on the floor of her bedroom, almost mute for days, wouldn’t eat wouldn’t sleep.  
Such a thing can not reach the public.  
“I feel better.“ Karolina says, only reading the words from her script, a family of actors.

Her mom smiles at her and for a second Karolina almost believes it is real, almost falls for the relief in her eyes, the outstretched hand, the offered love.  
But then, there, flashes: Destiny, red robes, all the harsh whispers at galas (stand tall Karolina, smile big Karolina, tell that interviewer about how much you love gibborim, such a good girl).  
She can not trust this, her, the one mother she ever had.  
(She wants too, she never will again.)

“Catherine has told me the kids have been spending a lot of time here.“

Leslie almost sounds glad, almost sounds happy for her daughter.  
Karolina only nods.

“Yeah, we decided to use the pool as an escape from the heat. And I was bored alone, so…“

A breath, a silent second. A chance for her mom to react, to maybe apologize…  
Her mom is looking down at her tablet, humming to show she listened.

“That sounds like fun, sweetie. Listen I gotta go, I’ve got a meeting at the church.“

Karolina tries not to flinch, not to fall in on herself. So stupid of her to think, to even dare to hope…  
She never learns, she never ever learns.  
Leslie stands up, brushes past her, the fabric of their shirts touching.  
Just a few centimeters away from Karolina she stops, brushes a lock of golden hair out of her daughters face.

“But how about you invite the others over again tonight? Maybe for a sleepover? Me and the parents got another Pride meeting this evening and you know how long those can take.“

Karolina feels her blood freeze in her veins, all the hairs on her skin stand up, a shiver down her back.  
Her throat is very dry all of a sudden, but she still makes words come out.

“I thought you only had those once a year?“

She prays her voice doesn’t sound as helpless as she feels, as nauseous.  
Her mother steps away from her, gathers her things, doesn’t look back again while she walks in the direction of the door.

“Well, some things have come up and we’ve got a lot of important decisions to make.“

At the door, already half out of it, car keys in hand, she looks at Karolina once more, the light from outside illuminating her, making her look like an angel.  
Karolina wants to throw up.

“Things are changing, Karolina. For the better.“

And then she’s gone, leaving only Karolina and the too big house, no cup in the sink, no stains on the counter, no sign she was ever there at all.  
Except for the panic in Karolina’s chest, except for the never ending nightmare she seems to be living in.

Karolina remembers, years ago, when she was younger, how her mother would never leave the house or her side without telling her she loved her.  
She tries to imagine her saying it now, a kiss on the head, a real smile, an I-love-you that doesn’t sound fake.  
Tries to imagine herself saying it back. Knows she would.  
Knows she’d mean it, which is the worst thing really, which is the most painful thing.

 

()()()()

 

After her mother has left, after the car has roared to live in the driveway, the creaking hinges of their vintage gate: Karolina runs upstairs, grabs her phone, dials a number as fast as she can.  
She’d meant to call Gert and she only realizes she didn’t when Nico answers on the other line, voice half sleep drunken, because Nico always sleeps as long as she possibly can.

“Whadsup?“

“Nico?“ 

“Yeah?“

“Oh! Hi.“

“Kar, you called me.“

Karolina blushes and for a second fears that Nico will be able to tell miles away.

“Right, right. Sorry.“

“Mmmh.“

Nico sounds as good as asleep again and Karolina can’t help but close her eyes, imagine herself laying next to her, listens to Nico’s soft little huffs of breath.  
She smiles without really noticing, the silence between them making it feel like they are much closer than they actually are.  
Then she remembers:

“Nico!“

“Jesus!“

“Listen, I just talked to my mom…“

“What, so she actually remembered she had a daughter?“

“and she said I should invite all of you over tonight-“

“Like she’d be able to stop you anyway. You could throw the biggest house party of the century and she wouldn’t notice…“

“-because she said they…are you even listening to me?“

Nico keeps muttering about Karolina’s mom, listing all the ways Leslie Dean is not a good mother, and even though it warms Karolina’s whole chest to know that her friend cares, that she even notices, this really isn’t the moment for this.

“Nico. This is important. Please.“

Nico stops talking momentarily. Karolina can almost see her bite her lip, which really isn’t an image she should be thinking about now.  
When Nico answers she sounds sheepish, which is not a thing Nico Minoru lets herself sound like often.

“Sorry.“

“No, it’s fine! Really, just….“

“Come one, Kar, you’re kinda making me nervous.“

“My mom said I should invite you over tonight because her and the others parents are having another pride meeting.“

There is silence on the other line and Karolina notices she’s been gripping her iPhone much too hard, is sure another second and it would have cracked in her hand.  
She tries to give Nico time, tries to distract herself by counting all the glow-in-the-dark stars on her bedroom ceiling, a present from Molly after Karolina told her she sometimes wishes she could just open the window and fly under the night sky.  
She smiles just looking at them.

“They only have those once a year.“

Nico’s voice is hard but unsure, Karolina’s grows softer without noticing.

“I know. That’s what I told her. But my mom just said that, and I quote, they’ve got a lot of important decisions to make and that things are changing for the better.“

“Like that’s not the most ominous thing to say.“

“Yeah…“

“No, I mean like, seriously. What the fuck? That obviously means some other poor kid is gonna die, right?“

Karolina can’t really answer, mostly because she’s been thinking the same thing since her mother talked to her. That doesn’t make it any easier to accept though. 

“I can’t believe this. So what? That one sacrifice wasn’t enough? They gotta get themselves another one? Gotta catch’em all!“

Nico’s voice grows louder and louder in volume, in hate, and in, what Karolina thinks might be, fear.  
Karolina can only hope Nico's parents are at work already.

“And what’s the most fucked up is that we are even surprised! What even happened to all our plans, to wanting to stop them? We just got used to this, like, oh alright so our parents murdered one kid, whatever. At least they sometimes pay attention to us, right?“

“Nico…“

“No, we should have known! We should have done something much much earlier, we-“

“Nico! Stop it! Don’t you think I know all this?“

Once again Nico is silent, except for the heavy breathing audible over the speakers.  
Karolina is gripping the phone again, anxious and panicky from listening to everything she’d already known but had been trying to ignore being spoken out loud.  
Her legs are like jello and she sinks down on her bed. By the creaks coming from the other line she thinks Nico has done the same.  
The clock on her vanity says it’s half past six in the morning but it feels so much later already, feels like hours have passed since she first woke up thirty minutes ago.  
There is the mirror across from her and she stares back at herself, eyes big and helpless, cheeks flushed, lip bitten bloody again. Damn it.

Nico sighs.

“Shit. I know you do, Kar. Sorry, I didn’t even think how that must have been, seeing your mom and then listening to her tell her lies…You okay?“

“I’m good.“ Karolina half smiles, playing with the fraying edges of her jean shorts. 

“You sure? I can come over if you want.“

“I’ll see you in school later anyway. It’s fine.“

“Is it like Karolina fine or normal people fine…“

Karolina lets herself fall back on her bed, laying down.

“Nicooo…“

“Because there’s a difference between those two, seeing as one doesn’t mean fine at all.“

“I’m hanging up now, I gotta get ready.“

“You wouldn’t dare.“

“Watch me.“

Nico laughs, mutters something that in any other world may have sounded like “I wish I could.“   
and then turns serious again.

“Alright, I see you later. Are you at least going to invite me over for that sleepover?“

“Mmh I’ll think about it.“

“Oh wow.“

“It’ll be pretty full already with Chase and Gert and Molly and Alex. And that dinosaur, you know how much space it takes up.“

“Now I’m the one hanging up.“

“See you in Biology.“

Karolina takes the phone from her ear to the last sounds of Nico’s chuckles, which are not really chuckles at all and more like scoffs.  
She can’t get up right away.   
Her legs are still weak because of everything that happened this morning, everything it means, and also just because … Nico.  
She flips her phone between her hands, tries hard not to smile too bright.  
This isn’t really a moment worth smiling about.   
Sure, her and Nico have gotten back into the natural groove of their friendship, made easier for Karolina by the absence of her self-sacrificing dreams, and whenever they banter with each other like this she can’t help but be so glad about everything that happened to bring them here.  
But Nico was right, they’d gotten too comfortable.  
Their parents are still murderers and the six of them have not done anything about it since they found out.  
That’s on them.

Karolina doesn’t deserve moments like this.

(This is why, sometimes, when she can’t pretend anymore, she misses her scary, suicidal, too-realistic dreams.   
At least in them, there was something she could do.  
At least there, her life had a purpose.)

Still, in spite of the morning she’s had, when Karolina arrives at school she is smiling.  
Still feeling warm and too happy.  
Still replaying every word her and Nico exchanged.

She only stops once she steps out of the car, once she sees that familiar head of black hair, pressed up against printed shirts and cheeky smirks.  
Alex and Nico are in their own world, like so often, and Karolina can only watch, from far away, while they forget that anything else (anybody else) exists.

(She sometimes wishes she could forget too. About her own existence.   
She has not been given that privilege.)

 

()()()()

 

(When she explains to the others-  
Nico is standing right next to her, the whole time. Their arms brushing, her face fierce.  
A silent mountain of strength, backup should anybody say shit.  
Karolina tries not to think to hard about that, about the girl to her right, about her own heart swelling five sizes, about how in love she is.  
It would be easier, if only Nico would stay away. If she wouldn’t be such a good friend. So supporting and nice and caring, always knowing when Karolina isn’t alright.  
It would hurt more, but it would be easier.  
Nico grins at her, at then end, when everybody has shared their thoughts, when they have gotten angry and scared and fought about what to do - Nico smiles at her, crooked and supportive, squeezes her hand when she passes.  
Holds Alex’s when they leave, fingers linked, palms pressed together, swinging between them with every step they take.)

 

()()()()

 

Karolina waits for the others after school, at home.  
They’d be there at six, they said, and it has just turned five.   
A whole hour still and the house is swallowing her up.  
She’s already cleaned her own room, the living room, the kitchen - the pool area is free of leaves, of left behind cups, of any signs of live.  
The tiles scrubbed clean, the walls blank except for posed pictures. 

(Her and her father, blonde and grinning with all their teeth, her mother and her red hair, close lipped smile that makes you want to be let in on the joke, the blue eyes shining back from all three of them.   
She remembers the photographer, caught up in how photogenic they were as a family, gushing with praise.  
Karolina loved this photo once, before, when she didn’t know the lies it was build on.)

Karolina wanders the halls of her own home like a ghost. Her fingers trailing over spotless kitchen counters, her steps echoing back at her.  
Through the big glass doors she can see the surface of the pool twinkling, throwing shadows against walls and eating up the early evening sunlight.

In moments like this, she thinks as she sits down outside with her feet in the water, she sometimes doubts her own existence.  
Is she even alive right now, is she even awake? Is this real?  
The water is cold but her dreams had always been very realistic, she wonders…  
Her own reflection looks back at her when she leans her head over the edge, her skin rippling with every gust of wind.  
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear, does it even make a sound?  
If Karolina Dean drowns in her own pool and no one is there to notice, would she even die?  
She wonders.

 

…

 

“Karolina!“  
Gert’s voice from behind her jolts her back, makes her almost loose her balance before she scrambles back from the edge of the pool.  
Her knees hurt from kneeling on the cold concrete, her knuckles red from clenching the pools frame.  
When had she changed positions, her face only centimeters from the waters surface?  
She stands up, ignores the ache in her legs, turns around to see Gert and Molly smiling at her, waving over from the patio door.  
She waves back.

“You’re early!“

Molly scrunches up her nose, passes Karolina to give her a fleeting hug, before flopping down in her favorite lounger.

“We said six, I thought!“

“Yeah, we did, it’s …“ Karolina’s eyes stray to the watch on her wrist, the leather darkened slightly where it got wet.   
The short hand is on the six, the long one just passed twelve.  
Oh.

Gert is looking at her amused and a little sceptic, her eyebrows raised over the frame of her glasses.  
“You okay? Did we interrupt an in depth conversation with the pool?“

Karolina blushes, her heart beating fast and her palms sweaty. She feels unanchored, wrong, bottomless.  
The laugh she offers up is maybe slightly panicked but Gert doesn’t seem to notice.

“No, no I just…I thought I saw something in it. A bug probably.“

She turns back to the pool, the ripples of the water still hypnotic.  
Gert snorts.   
“Okay Disney Princess. You spend your day saving insects but I think we’ve got a few more pressing problems here.“

Karolina nods, her eyes still lingering on the water surface, the wet spots her feet left behind already drying in the sun.  
She looks at her watch again, at Molly and Gert bickering over lounge chairs, at the dinosaur she’s only noticing now sticking his head in the bushes, at the sun that’s sitting lower than before.  
She feels it now, the blank spaces in her memory, the time she’s missing.  
It is unsettling, nauseating, makes her skin crawl.  
She wants to cry suddenly.

Gert is calling her name, by the look on her face it is not the first time, and Karolina turns to her in what must be slow motion, her limbs heavy.  
“By the way, I know you live in like the safest neighborhood of California but leaving your door unlocked is still pretty stupid if you ask me.   
Anybody could walk in here!“

That’s not quite true, Karolina knows. Michael at the gate knows who to let in and everyone else doesn’t even get the chance.  
But still, Karolina is usually meticulous about locking the door behind her, it is ingrained in her muscle memory and now when she tries to think back she can’t remember anything except flashes of wandering up and down the halls of the house, cleaning rooms and waiting for time to pass and her friends to show up.  
Maybe she had forgotten to lock the door…

A hand touches her arm and she almost jumps out of her skin, Nico’s grin fading a little at the look on her face.

“Wow, sorry. I thought you saw me coming, you literally looked right at me…“

Karolina shakes her head, stares dumbly at Nico for a second, the hair up in two buns, the dark sunglasses, dark lipstick, dark dress…   
Nico stares back but her eyes are questioning. She raises one black eyebrow.

“Hi! Sorry, yeah! I didn’t…Hi!“

Nico looks past her at Gert and Molly, her sunglasses sliding down the bridge of her nose a little.

“What’s going on?“

Molly doesn’t look up from the comic in her hands.

“Kar is being weird.“

“I’m not being weird!“

Gert musters her inquiring. 

“You kind of are.“

Karolina turns back to Nico, her face flushed. 

“I’m not! I’m fine! Completely good!“

Nico smiles at her before looking back at the other two.

“I see what you mean.“

Karolina groans.  
She knows they are probably just teasing, even though Gert is beginning to look like she’ll start asking questions in a few seconds and Nico seems maybe a little worried under all the snark, but her palms are still sweating and she does feel weird, and not good and pretty confused.  
They can’t know that though.  
Her head has been kind of messed up these last months and maybe she hasn’t gotten over this whole thing, thing being her dreams for one, like she thought she had.  
This is not the time, though, to get hung up on this.  
Like Gert said, they all have more pressing problems to attend.

“I just can’t stop thinking about our parents meeting tonight.“ 

It’s not a lie per se and Gert’s shoulders slump while she nods.   
Nico looks at her for a second longer and Karolina tries hard to look innocent, like a girl whose only problems are her murder parents.   
Nico accepts this, then, and slumps down into a chair right where she’s standing, her arm brushing Karolina’s on the way.

“Yeah I get that. I’ve been feeling the need to throw up the whole day.“

Gert nods and Molly puts her comic away, sits up on the lounger, tucks her legs underneath her.

“Do you really think they’ll, like, kill another kid tonight?“

The younger girl is looking up at them with big eyes and Karolina wishes she could say no and mean it. Molly deserves to not have to deal with this shit.   
She’s already been through so much and she’s still so young.  
So she says nothing instead, tries not to clear her throat even though it’s itching and lets her eyes wander everywhere but to Molly.

Nico, still on the lounge next to her, her naked arms almost touching Karolina’s naked legs (so close she can feel the heat from her skin), is doing the same, staring resolutely at her nails.

Molly isn’t stupid.  
“Oh. Okay.“

Gert winces, her hand landing on Molly’s back, rubbing slow circles.

“Listen Molls, we don’t know anything. Maybe they are just talking, strategizing.“

Nico looks like she may object to that but Gert throws her a glare so cutting that she just holds up her hands in surrender and sinks lower down on the lounger.

Molly shrugs off Gert’s hand, stands up with her arms crossed, kicks a pebble into the bushes.

“That wouldn’t be any better though, right? They’d still be talking about killing kids. Or about what happens now that they did kill someone. They are still killers.“

No one says anything.  
What can they say? Karolina knows exactly how Molly is feeling, the anger and sadness, the grief.  
The knowledge that no matter what their parents are or aren't doing this evening, if they’re just playing Jenga or having another satanic ritual, it won’t change what already happened.  
They wont just get them back.

 

When the doorbell rings (because not everybody just invites themselves in, Gert, even if the door is open) all four of them are ripped out of their hopeless daydreams.   
Chase and Alex arrive at the same time, already bickering over what Pizza toppings Alex had chosen, Chase already chewing on a piece hanging out of his mouth.  
Karolina can see Gert roll her eyes at him but she still walks in his direction and he meets her in the middle, like two magnets pulled to each other.  
Chase grins at her, all pepperoni and cheese, and Gert looks disgusted but she still wipes a bit of sauce from his cheek.

Karolina has to look away, it feels too private.  
Her eyes meet Nico’s and they smile at each other, both thinking the same.  
Finally. And: those idiots.  
It feels good to love people like she loves her friends: Chase and Gert never make her jealous, only happy.  
Nico looks away again, roped into a welcome from Alex, and Karolina turns to the side, stares at the pool once more. She can not see the ground from where she’s standing.  
So enticing.  
(Only happy, even though she’ll never have what they have.)

 

After they’ve eaten, after they’ve ignored the reason they are really having this sleepover for long enough, after conversation has run dry, has made room for the big elephant in the room:  
they are all scattered around the pool, it’s only just passed seven and the sun is at it’s most beautiful.  
Karolina has been trying very hard for the last hour not to stare at Nico too much, but the sun makes her hair look copper, her skin almost translucent, her eyes bigger and brighter.  
They are sitting pretty much opposite from each other, the pool between them, and Karolina likes to pretend that the waves she makes with her feet in the water arrive at Nico’s side and whisper against her legs.  
Sometimes she catches herself writing letters into the water, deep enough that no one will notice.  
i love you i love you i love you.  
Again and again.   
Nico never looks up, the water at her side of the pool undisturbed except for the ripples her own legs cause.

Alex is the first to bring it up, because Alex always is, because he is braver than all of them in that aspect.  
He comes back outside with a sprite for himself and a coke for Nico (zero, even though she likes light better) and without preamble changes the topic to why they are really here.

“I think we need to spy on them.“

He doesn’t even sit down, stands in the middle of Karolina’s back yard with a determined look in his eyes, one hand wrapped around the can, the other pushed into the pocket of his jeans.  
There’s a certain strength about him, one that Karolina can’t find in herself anymore, that she searches for while looking in the mirror.

Chase is the first one to react, hands playing with a napkin, shredding it into little pieces that rain into his lap.

“Oh sure, let’s just get our CIA gear and go at it.“

Alex glares at him, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“I’m serious. Otherwise we’ll never know what they’re doing tonight and speculating will only make us crazy. We need to act!“

Nico is looking at him slightly amused, but with a dark undertone. When she speaks it is mocking, a little belittling.  
Karolina tries to not remember her dreams. This is not the time.

“So what? We’ll take Gert’s car, inconspicuous as it is, and play stakeout?“ 

“Hey, my car is great!“

“So not my point.“

Alex sighs, rubbing his forehead: Karolina feels bad for him, and also, kinda agrees with him.  
They can’t just sit around here and not do anything, not again.

“It’s not that complicated! All we need to do is drive to my house.   
I know they’re meeting there, I heard mom talking about ordering food.  
I go inside, say I forgot my phone or charger or something.  
One of you keeps our parents distracted while I plant a bug in the office.“

He says it like it’s nothing, planting a bug, spying on their parents.  
Karolina can feel the pain in her chest growing, the one that tells her “this is real. this is your life now. things will never be normal again“.

Chase shakes his head, eyes unbelieving.

“Where do you even get a bug from?“

Alex shrugs.

“I made one, it’s not that complicated. They got youtube videos for it.“

“Oh come on, this is crazy. I mean, I can’t be the only one…“ Chase turns to Gert but stops when he sees her face.  
Karolina recognizes the look on her Gert’s face. She feels the way Karolina does, tired of not doing anything, of only siting by, knowing what is happening and ignoring it.  
Chase slumps back in the lounger.

“I don’t believe this.“

Gert, for her part, looks a little sheepish but not apologetic.

“It’s not the worst idea! Besides, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have some evidence! Right now, if we decide to go to the police, we’re just some kids saying we saw our parents in a secret basement, in red robes, killing a girl that’s not even officially missing.   
No one would believe us.“

Alex nods and Karolina can feel herself agreeing.   
She’d never thought about it like that, going to the police not even an option in her mind, but Gert is right.  
They have nothing proving what they saw.  
And their parents are all rich, influential people. If they are even contemplating telling law enforcement they’ll need hard evidence.

“So this is decided then?“ Alex pushes.   
His arms are crossed over his chest, his stare strong.   
Karolina remembers, back in third grade, when she’d written her homework with a blue glitter pen and her teacher had failed her for it, Alex had that same look in his eyes then, calmly telling their teacher that nowhere did it say anything about what pen to use, that he had to grade Karolina based on the content of her essay.  
She got a B+, her father had framed it and hung it on the fridge.   
(That was back when a B+ was still an okay thing to have, when her parents adored her for her individuality, when they still cared about the stories she told about school.)

So, Karolina is the first to stand up and say yes. She’s the one who helps to convince Nico and Chase when they still think it’s a stupid idea.   
She’s, also, the one who volunteers to go with Alex, to drive them there, to distract their parents while Alex plants his bug.  
They all look at her, sceptic and surprised, no one more so than Alex himself, but she can’t help but smile.   
It feels so good, to finally do something.   
To be useful for once.

 

()()()()

 

(Two days ago Karolina had dreamed about a tall man without a face, wearing a suit and a beam of light.   
They had stood at the edge of a cliff, his shoulder almost touching hers, much too close, and when Karolina looked down there was nothing nothing as far as she could see.  
He’d turned to her, a bright light where his head should be but Karolina could still tell he was smiling.   
“You know, don’t you?“ he’d asked.   
Karolina said no and he threw his shooting star head back and laughed.  
She couldn’t feel the wind against her skin, sun on her face. It was neither hot nor cold. She’d felt nothing except for the nausea in her stomach, the ominous way he took up space.  
The man held out his hand, a big white ring on one finger, and looked out over the cliff.  
“Come on. I’ll do it with you.“   
Karolina had taken what he’d offered and once they were falling falling down he’d ripped his hand out of hers, wings unfolding from his back while the bracelet around her wrist grew heavier and heavier, taking her all the way down.

This dream could have meant something too, maybe, but once she woke up she had already forgotten all about it.   
She never even remembered she had dreamed at all.)

 

()()()()

 

The car ride is awkward and Karolina feels bad to say that it’s her fault more than it’s Alex’s.  
Has been her fault for a while now.   
She’s been trying her best, really, but she knows that she has been nothing less of obvious in her inability to feel comfortable around Alex, and he doesn’t deserve it.   
Doesn’t deserve the cold shoulder, forced smiles, the never looking him in the eyes.   
The wide spasm she has built between the two of them.   
But whenever she feels like maybe she’ll get over it, like she’ll be able to see Alex as her friend again instead of Nico’s boyfriend, he does something as simple as hold Nico’s hand softly, throw his arm around her shoulder and laugh into her hair, hide his face in her neck, love her like she’ll never be able to and Karolina breaks.  
Alex notices, of course. He’s not stupid.

There’s a Billie Eilish song playing on the radio, almost too quiet to hear, and Karolina rolls down her window.  
Alex has been watching her out of the corner of his eyes for a few minutes now but Karolina keeps ignoring it, eyes fixed on the road, hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel.  
Alex turns in his seat a little.

“Thanks for backing me up with the others.“

Karolina shrugs, throws a small smile in his direction.

“No problem.“

It’s quiet again and she curses herself for forgetting how to talk to people, for being this bad at pretending.

“I don’t think Nico would have agreed to this if it wasn’t for you.“

Karolina chokes, almost swerves the car to the middle of the road. She knows even without looking in a mirror that her cheeks are probably a deep red.  
Her hands start shaking on the steering wheel a little and she allows herself a glance at Alex.   
He’s not looking at her, head turned to his window.  
Karolina tries to get her breathing and heartbeat under control, tries to tell herself that Alex doesn’t know, that he’s just making conversation.   
Not everything has a deeper meaning.

“I’m sure that’s not true. She trusts you.“

Her voice is steadier than she feels. Outside the sun is setting very slowly and Karolina is not ready to talk about her and Nico, in whatever capacity, to anyone. Alex least of all.

“Yeah, maybe.“

Karolina suddenly feels bad for Alex, for the resigned tone in his voice, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans.

“Anyways, it’s a good plan. We can’t just keep doing nothing. You were right about that.“

He turns to her then, little smile on his lips. Karolina almost laughs at the fact that they all crave validation the way they do. They are not getting any from their parents right now, tell themselves they don’t want any from them, and it shows. 

“Thanks.“

Karolina hums.   
Alex stays turned in her direction but the awkwardness has subsided a little.   
Karolina’s hands are still gripping the steering wheel too hard but that’s more because Keaton Henson is singing “and this is the world as I see it now, turns out that nothing is fair“ on the radio and sometimes songs feel like a punch in the gut.   
She tries not to listen too intently to the lyrics but the car is otherwise silent again. 

They arrive to the Wilder’s part of town, “please do not break my heart, I think it’s had enough pain to last the rest of my life“ playing and Karolina can’t bring herself to change the station. 

Alex saves her.

“Can I ask you something?“ 

She wants to say no but now the words “you don’t have to make any promises, love, I’m afraid I might die for you now“ are eating a hole into her stomach and she wants to press her eyes together against the onslaught of feelings and flashbacks to her dreams, but she can’t because she’s driving.

So she just nods.

“Did I do anything to you?“

It’s not the question she had feared the most (“what’s going on with you and Nico?“) but it’s not much better.  
There isn’t really an answer she can give him, after all.

“No of course not. Why would you ask that?“

They both know she’s playing stupid and Alex isn’t shy about it. 

“Come on. I’m not blind. I know things have been weird in general but you haven’t even looked in my direction for weeks now.“

What is she supposed to say to that? You’re right, but seeing you with Nico makes me hate you a little bit. I know it’s not your fault, I just love her so much. My heart is hurting whenever you hold hands or kiss or even just look in her direction.  
You’re allowed to do that, you can stare at her on her especially pretty days, and tuck her hair behind her ears whenever you feel like it. I can’t even hug her without feeling like everything will fall apart, like I’m destroying everything.

Karolina leans her head to the side so the wind can caress her hair.

“It’s not your fault.“ she says. And: “I’m sorry.“ 

Alex stares at her, either having expected more of an explanation or no answer at all, but Karolina can’t give him more than this.   
He understands after a few seconds, turns back to the front, the Wilder mansion looming at the end of the street like a villains lair. All massive, and white and beautiful.

 

()()()()

 

Alex decides to ring the bell, like this isn’t his home, his house, like his key isn’t pressing painfully into his thigh.  
Karolina knows: he is scared too. Want’s to give their parents a few seconds to hide whatever they’ve been doing, to play normal parents again.  
Karolina is fine with that. She’s not ready to walk in on them in red robes either. Some things are just too real.

It doesn’t take long though, not nearly long enough to change into normal clothes or make the way up from the hidden basement, before Mrs. Wilder opens the door.   
There’s a glass of wine in her hand, a smile on her face like she’d just been laughing over something, and her blouse is white and immaculate.  
No blood, no robes, only Alex’s mom.

She looks surprised to see them, but not unhappy, and that’s the thing that throws them the most.

“Alex. And Karolina. What are you doing here? Weren’t you having your sleepover?“

Karolina just blinks at her, at the warm eyes and the warmer tone with which she says Alex’s name.  
She almost feels bad now, coming here with the plan they have. Like they’re the ones being unfair.

Alex is faster than her in reacting and she realizes that the both of them came here with the same expectations. Prepared for the worst.

“Hi Mom. I forgot my laptop charger. Karolina was nice enough to drive me over.“

Karolina waves like a moron when Mrs. Wilder smiles at her.

“Alright, come on in. You can say hello to the others while you're here.“

Alex and Karolina glance at each other once Mrs. Wilder has her back to them, Alex furrowing his brow and Karolina shrugging her shoulders.

Mrs. Wilder steers them into the living room, a big table full of food stretching along one of the walls and the rest of their parents all with glasses of wine in their hands.

“Look who’s here.“ Mrs. Wilder says and for the first time Karolina thinks she can hear something aside from polite niceness in her voice. She’d say it was fear if she didn’t think Catherine Wilder was incapable of being afraid.

The others all turn to them and Karolina almost flinches when her mothers ice blue eyes meet hers. She tries to smile her perfect Karolina smile, her bodies automatic reaction to being in the presence of Leslie Dean.  
Stacie and Dale Yorkes wave at the two of them, hands and mouths full of food, while Mr. Wilder nods at her and comes over to clasp a hand on his sons shoulder.   
Janet Stein smiles, the same smile Chase has, his real one, while her husband doesn’t really pay attention to them at all.   
Karolina is almost glad about that. She can never quite stop herself from becoming angry whenever she has to interact with him  
His cold and stony eyes make her think about the days Chase comes to school with long sleeved shirts even though it’s the middle of summer, or the way he sometimes flinches when someone talks to loud or his lacrosse buddies slap him on the back.  
Karolina doesn’t really hate people but she’s pretty sure she hates Victor Stein.

Mr. and Mrs. Minoru have thrown small smiles in their direction when Karolina notices that her Dad is nowhere in sight.   
Before she can stop herself she turns in her mothers direction, a confused frown on her face.

“Where’s Dad?“

“Your father had a meeting today and sadly couldn’t make it.“

The voice that answers her isn’t one she knows and she can’t help but notice the way everybody in the room suddenly stands up straighter, doesn’t miss her mother’s eyes lightning up.  
Alex and her both turn around to the sound of footsteps behind them and Karolina almost stumbles back.

The man standing in the doorway to the living room is tall, taller than any of the other parents, wearing a suit that looks like it was made for him and a smile that is sharper than a knife.  
The second Karolina looks at him theres a sharp pain in the back of her head and she winces.   
For a moment her whole body feels numb and she feels uprooted, like her feet are leaving the ground, like something in her brain is tearing, a glistening light behind her eyes.

Then it’s gone, but the nausea in her stomach stays, the alarm bells ringing somewhere far far away.

The man in the suit comes closer, eyes on her before he turns to Alex, who has stepped up to stand closer to her, and offers his hand.  
(Something in Karolina is screaming at Alex not to take it.)

“I apologize, how rude of me not to introduce myself.“

He shakes Alex’s hand and then focuses back onto Karolina, the same hand stretched out in her direction.

“My name is Jonah, I’m an … old friend of your parents.“

Karolina doesn’t notice accepting the handshake, only feels the ring on Jonah’s finger pressing painfully cold into her skin.  
He is still staring at her, holding her hand captive between his, and Karolina can feel Alex fidget next to her.

“Nice to meet you.“ Karolina says, if only to break the weird silence between them.  
Jonah finally lets go of her hand and she tugs it back to her side quickly, hiding it in the pockets of her jeans.  
Her skin where he touched it feels like she burned herself. There are shivers running down her back with every second he keeps staring at her.

His eyes take in all of her face, before landing once again on her eyes. His are blue like hers, like her mothers, like her fathers are.   
They bore into her until she can’t help but look away, feeling more uncomfortable than she has ever felt.

“Oh believe me.“ Jonah says, and she can feel his eyes still staring holes into the side of her head.  
“The pleasure is all mine.“

Her skin is crawling.  
She feels Alex step closer to her, his arm almost brushing hers, and she’s suddenly eternally grateful for his presence.

“We are really sorry to interrupt, I just need to grab my charger real quick and we’ll be gone.“

His hand closes around her forearm, softly tugging her with him in the direction of the office, which is just next to the living room.  
Karolina is confused for a second, their plan being that she stay behind and distract the others, but once she looks up and into Alex’s eyes, seeing the worry in them and his clenched jaw, she just follows him to the other side of the room.  
The skin on her neck prickles and she knows, if she’d turn around Jonah’s eyes would still be on their withdrawing forms.

Before they can reach the doorway though Alex’s mom steps in their way, the smile still on her lips, but forced now, almost painful.

“Here.“ she holds out her hand to Alex and Karolina can see the white cord in it.Alex stares at his mother and then at the charger in her hand.  
“It was in the kitchen. You shouldn’t just leave your stuff laying around Alex.“

Alex takes the charger but his movements are slow, almost lethargic.  
Karolina understands.  
She feels completely overtaken too. Nothing is happening like she thought it would.

“I…thanks but…“ Alex looks around them, at all their parents still staring at them, except for Karolina’s mom who is staring at Jonah, a look on her face Karolina doesn’t want to identify.

Mrs. Wilder puts her arm around Alex’s shoulder and guides him in the direction of the door, Karolina following listlessly since Alex is still gripping her forearm.

They are almost at the entrance when Mrs. Wilder turns her son around, looks him in the eye.   
Karolina is standing next to Alex, trying hard not to look back to where they came from and still feeling ice blue, emotionless eyes on her.

“You shouldn't come over unannounced. Those meetings are private.“  
Catherine Wilder doesn’t sound angry, not at them, instead there’s that sliver of fear again, a little clearer now, and Karolina shivers.  
“This can’t happen again.“

With those words she pushes the two of them the last few meters and out the door, closes it behind her without looking back, and the humid, thick summer air slaps Karolina in the face.

The both of them are still standing in front of Alex’s house a minute later, both of them trying to work out what just happened.

“What the fuck?“ Alex says. His voice more of a spitting than anything else but there’s a shaking to it that Karolina can feel in all her bones.

“Yeah.“ is all she can get out. She’s nauseous, and she’s not sure if it’s because of Jonah’s intimate stares or the ominous air surrounding him or maybe because of the blinding white light flaring up in front of her eyes again and again.  
She frees her arm from Alex’s grasp, a soft tug enough, and sinks down onto one of the stairs leading to the door.  
Her whole body feels clammy and weak.   
Something’s building in her chest, a certain pressure, and she’d love to take off her bracelet for a few minutes. Hopes that would make it better.

She can see Alex’s legs in front of her, shuffling his shoes against the ground.

“You okay?“ he asks.

Karolina nods, but her shoulders drop even lower and her breaths are still not as deep as she’d like them to be. She thinks this time even Alex can tell that she’s lying.

“You wanna get out of here?“  
Alex is looking down at her with a smile on his face that’s fake but still comforting, his hand in front of him ready to help her up.  
Karolina wants to take back everything bad she ever thought about him, all the times she ignored him because of her own incompetence in overcoming her feelings.  
Alex is good and Alex is her friend and Alex didn’t leave her alone with creepy Jonah even if it cost them their plan.  
She nods and takes his hand.

When they’re at the car Alex automatically makes his way over to the drivers side and she has no energy left to protest, just throws him the keys and gets in herself.  
Once on the road he rolls down the windows again, changes the station to some Taylor Swift songs and turns the volume up loud enough that Karolina can’t hear herself think.

She’s so very grateful.

 

()()()()

 

Back at her house the others are waiting out by the pool.  
The weather is still too hot, the water still too enticing and the moon is extra bright today, the sky still a little pink, not completely black yet.  
Nico is still too pretty, her feet drawing waves into the water.  
Just seeing her makes Karolina’s jaw unclench, relaxes her shoulders, gives her back all the air she lost because of Jonah’s cold and unflinching eyes, steals it again because of other reasons. Nico reasons.

Karolina must still look as bad as she felt just a second ago because as soon as Nico sees her her eyebrows draw together and she stands up to go to her side.

“You okay?“ she asks, and there is real concern in her voice, eyes soft and brown, beautiful brown.  
Karolina can only smile at her.

“Just a headache.“ she mumbles when it seems that Nico wants a real answer.   
She’s not even lying, her head is killing her. Bright lights erupting whenever she moves her eyes.

“How was it?“ Chase asks, and Alex looks in her direction once before he explains, in all detail, the weirdness of what just transpired.  
When he gets to the part about Jonah he halts, not quite sure how to formulate his eery energy and the way it felt to be in his presence.   
Like a war you’d already lost.

“He was creepily fixated on Karolina.“ he says, eyes going in her direction but Karolina keeps looking at the ground, unwilling to talk about this.  
“Like, he couldn’t stop staring at her.“

She can feel the others staring at her, hears the rustle of Nico’s clothes as she moves closer, can almost feel her warm breaths against the side of her neck.

“He was just weird.“ she mumbles, lips pressed into the palm of her hand and eyes still fixed to the ground.  
Alex keeps talking, tells the others why they didn’t get to plant the bug, what his mother told him on their way out.  
Karolina can hear the others chime in, discussing what they are supposed to do now, but she can’t concentrate on them.  
Her mind is still back at the house, and, even earlier, at the pool, when she was still alone. That hour she’d lost.   
The things she’s been ignoring. The constant nausea she feels.  
Every morning she wakes up, how she’s always missing something.   
When she saw Jonah, that first time…she wasn’t surprised.   
Shocked, maybe. But not surprised.  
Like she’d been expecting him, like she’d known him before.  
There was almost something like a memory, she’s sure of it, close enough to grasp, before the blinding light and the pain came and she’d lost it again.

She seems to be losing a lot these days.  
Time and things she should remember and her composure.

There’s a shuffling next to her and then something warm and soft gripping her hand.  
Karolina looks down and sees Nico’s fingers entwined with hers. Karolina’s slightly tanner skin against Nico’s pale one.  
When Karolina raises her head a little their eyes meet and Nico nudges their shoulders together, a silent question.

For a moment Karolina thinks about telling her, about hiding her face in Nico’s neck and whispering “I think there’s something wrong with me“.  
Imagines Nico holding her close and helping her breathe.   
Karolina isn’t going to do it though, she knows herself good enough for that by now.

Nico shouldn’t have to help her with this, not when all of them have more than enough of their own problems.   
Nobody should have to deal with her.  
She’s fine, it’s fine. 

Nico squeezes her hand once, leans a little closer, and Karolina tries to adapt her breathing to Nico’s. The calm and slow way her chest moves.  
She can do this. She can do it.  
Everything is gonna be okay.

She squeezes Nico’s hand back. It’s enough for now.

 

()()()()

 

End Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun. 
> 
> I can tell you this: It's gonna get worse for poor Karolina before it'll get better. and then it's gonna get worse again haha I love pain 
> 
> Maybe you noticed that it's gonna be 3 parts now when I said 2 before? yah that's because I'm really bad at guessing how long shit's gonna be. 
> 
> But Part 3 will be the part everything will come together. I've at least got the whole plot planned out and know what still needs to happen.  
> I know this took a different turn than some may have thought and also there isn't that much deanoru in this.   
> That will change next part.
> 
> Tbh I'm not completely happy with this part, I hope you like it though.   
> I felt that if I just kept rewriting and rewriting this it wouldn't get any better and also I really wanted to give you guys an update.
> 
> You've been so amazing with your feedback and comments, seriously nothing makes me happier.   
> (To those apologizing for rambling comments or for just repeating what others said - are you kidding? rambling comments are my favorite and just the fact that you took time to write something and tell me what you thought is such a good and beautiful thing, honest.)
> 
> ALSO-tell me what your theories for whats happening are and what you think is going on. :)
> 
> As always, find me on Tumblr: kkidstoday
> 
> (For those that asked - my playlist: (I'm sorry i don't have spotify or anything this is gonna be long)  
> sleepover - Hayley Kiyoko; Ocean eyes - Billie eilish; Space song, Real love, Take care - Beach House; Rivers and Roads - the head and the heart; Monsoon - Hippie Campus; Nothing's gonna hurt you baby - Cigarettes after sex; I go to the barn because I like the - Band of horses; Bored - Billie eilish; Apocalypse - Cigarettes after sex; Just the way I am - Emma Louise; Focus - Sigrid; Love you like that (acoustic) - Dagny; Radiant warmth - Miki Ratsula; Don't you forget about me (acoustic), Medicine (acoustic) - Robinson; Whale song - Corey Kilgannon; Transatlanticism - Death cab for cutie; The wisp sings - Winter Aid; Waiting, Heartbeat - Alice Boman (listen to the lyrics i die every time); all afternoon in love - the vaccines; Such great heights - iron & wine; lost love letters - Fog lake; Beauty - the shivers; Appointments - Julien Baker; Flesh and Bone - Keaton Henson; 10am gare du nord - Keaton Henson (the song I used in the car scene, also makes me die); Honey Jars - Bryan John Appleby; All I want - Kodaline)
> 
> That's it pls leave comments <3

**Author's Note:**

> SHITS ABOUT TO GO DOWN in part two!
> 
>  
> 
> (this was mostly self-indulgent Karolina gay angst not at all influenced by my own gay experiences I do not know what you mean.  
> Listen, I know this is extra dramatic and nothing even really happens and dialog is still that thing I always ignore should be in stories but - MY HEART WANTED TO WRITE THIS! so I did.  
> Karolina Dean is my dumb angel and Nico Minoru could honestly slay me all day and all those runaways are my kids. I'm a mom now.)
> 
> Part two is started but I'm only like 2000 words in and honestly, no idea when that will be coming.  
> But - you know - comments always motivate me to write ,,,  
> so,,,
> 
> If you think I'm too proud to beg ahah you are wrong: please follow me on my tumblr kkidstoday and scream at me there. I wanna talk to people.  
> I also may post some other writing shit there if people want and as always if you wanna know my playlist while writing this I will give it to you! (but no one ever asks so)
> 
> Cool, good bye now.  
> I will regret posting this.


End file.
